No.189: Nauru

Full story to follow ...

Owen Powell - 24th October 2007

Yesterday, we got an email from a nurse called Jody. Jody is from Nauru! (Well, half from Nauru, but at this stage of the project, half-Nauruan definitely counts).

We both replied, we went to bed, we woke up (all these activities were done individually, in our separate houses), and saw that Jody had not replied. We ummed and ahhed. I had a shower. (I don't know what Alex did). We phoned each other, and decided that as Jody had told us where she worked, we should go to where she worked. Which is a intensive care unit for children in the Royal Brompton Hospital.

It's amazing how far into a hospital you can get without really being ill or injured. We were on the point of going into a classroom for ill children in search of a nurse from Nauru, but saw another nurse in the corridor and asked her instead. "Jody?" she said. "Oh, she was on night shift last night, so she's probably in bed now. Do you want to leave her a message, in case she's working tonight?" Alex scribbled something, in the kind of handwriting a stalker might use, and we hoped for the best.

Later this afternoon, while Alex and I ate lunch (this time, together, at my house) Jody phoned. A Nauruan! Finally! On the very final day that a Nauruan could have phoned!

She told me that she wasn't working tonight, and in fact wanted to come to our last night party, bringing her sister, another half-Nauruan with her. (Two half-Nauruans, in my book, always add up to one whole Nauruan).

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Jody and Catherine came to the party, stayed for hours, and put up with everyone else saying, "So, YOU'RE the famous Nauruans!" again and again. But they are the famous Nauruans, in our eyes, and it was a fitting end to the project to interview someone in the final hours of what has been the most amazing year of our lives.