On Remote Island Village, Health Worker Challenges Tradition
Posted on April 27, 2010, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Health, India, International, women.
AZIMOR, India — After a couple hours of cruising down the Brahmaputra River, the boat clinic arrives at a desolate mud bank. A fisherman nearby dips his pole into the water and pulls up a large net. Two community workers emerge from the boat and set off with a box of medical supplies towards the thatch-roof homes in the distance.
The doctors, nurses and I follow behind, zigzagging through the rain-soaked grass. We take off our shoes to wade through the flooded areas. The air feels fresh and crisp. With no roads or vehicles on the island, the only sounds we hear are roosters, cows and our feet sloshing through the water.
About 1,200 Bengali-speaking Muslims live in Azimor village. They have no electricity, toilets or clean drinking water. There is a primary school, which consists of a one-room structure made out of bamboo walls and a tin roof. The week before our arrival a storm had picked up the school and dropped it off in another part of the village.
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