Seamus - Seamus O

Hey everybody! I'm Seamus O'Bryan from Arizona, USA. There have been some crazy adventures in my life and hopefully will be a few more. This little site here is to document one such adventure for my friends and family back home. I'll be a lucky man if this adventure turns out to be as good as the rest.

The current endeavor has me working as one of three new directors for a small humanitarian aid organization. Project MARC is a non-governmental organization that provides medical assistance to remote communities in Vanuatu. The projects we do range from delivering babies to installing water systems. The country of Vanuatu is a small island nation in the South Pacific. If you've never heard of it, you should look it up.

This website will serve as a log of my activities and will hopefully allow people to observe the projects while they happen. If you scroll down to some of last year's journal entries, you can see some of the places I've been privileged enough to visit.

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Joined on: March 17th 2007
Last Login: February 7th 2010

Blog Entries: 34
Photos: 820
Recommended by 1

TB Code: [blogger=34427]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by Seamus, order by Date newest first.

By Seamus
October 25th 2009

A story by Dr. SueLin Hilbert Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

Dr. SueLin Hilbert

A story by Dr. SueLin Hilbert I am not what you would call a “natural born leader.” I think I ran for some kind of class office in high school once. I don’t have that striking charisma that some people do where they can walk into a group of people and just own the room. I’m more of a “keep your head down” and work hard team member, happy to step up when needed, but equally happy to step down when not. Within the last year, however, I have somehow managed to find myself in two major leadership positions: Chief Resident [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
October 8th 2009

A story by Frank Zolnai Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

The optimizer

* Please note: The opinions and observations of Project MARC volunteers do not reflect the thoughts or opinions of the overall organization. Thursday 1 October: Motored over, off-loaded all the gear. Clinic finally opened and our purpose kicked in. My involvement over, I took my camera and went walkabout. God what a place!!! What People!!! Where there’s work many hands knock it over very quickly, and without apparent supervision. When there’s no work, the natives do nothing. But they do it segregated. Women and kids in one place, and the blokes somewhere else. This is also true of their kastom ceremonies. [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
October 7th 2009

October Expedtion Continued. Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

Mapping out the new plan

After a day of marine earthquakes and tsunami warnings we were united with Frank Zolnai and Dr. SueLin Hilbert. Capt. Steve and the SV Ironie delivered crew and supplies expertly and after a little fun with the Project MARC mooring in Sakao, we had them tied up nicely. (Ask me later for the more intricate details of this operation. Some of us still have scars from the undertaking.) Due to delays and sweeping changes that had happened during Project MARC's absence from the area, our plans for the October Expedition needed to change also. Flexibility is often the name of our [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
October 4th 2009

October Expedition Part 1 Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

Early return

After leaving Banam Bay for the Maskelyne Island Group we got word that the two volunteers meant to join us for our October Expedition would be delayed due to lost luggage courtesy of a wonderful airline. Delays are common for us, however, so it was no big deal. The goal of our October Expedition was to gather information from the Southern and Western Coasts of Malekula for the Vanuatu Ministry of Health. The tall ship Alvei was to deliver hiking teams to key points along the coast so that overland teams could hike from village-to-village gathering information. Since we were delayed [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
October 4th 2009

It’s really the un-knowing that’s the worst… Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

Lookout

So while I was in Vanuatu this year there were a few major earthquakes in the area that caused enough of a ruckus to make international headlines. It wasn’t necessarily the earthquakes that caused the ruckus, but the accompanying tsunamis that followed them. One such earthquake happened to the East of Vanuatu. It was in the Fiji, Samoa, and American Samoa area, but respectively that’s not all that far away. The wave which struck land in these other countries managed to kill quite a few people and do a lot of damage. Luckily, it did so early enough in the day [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
October 3rd 2009

An Interesting Day... Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

Sam's Family

November third was a rather interesting day. It’s not that every day is like this for me, but days like this happen frequently enough. I haven’t gotten around to recording many of my days this year, but maybe that because I’m a little too busy living them up. To fully grasp the entirety of this single day in the life, one needs to learn a bit about the night before. Simply put: there was a kava session. Un-simply put: I got to further the bond between a village chief’s family and myself, opened the eyes of an in-experienced companion traveler, engaged [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
September 14th 2009

A story by Kudra Ricketts Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

Kudra Ricketts

I flew the short distance from Vila to Malekula by plane. We arrived at the tiny brick building with no furniture which was the airport. The runway was a grass paddock. I drove by truck with my dad and the two midwives Kelly and Carrie until we reached Banam Bay. There we were met by the friendly crew of the Alvei. (The ship we were staying on.) Once we were settled in, I went with the Project MARC team to a village called Burbar where they had put in a water tank. (We had come late and the rest of the [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
September 12th 2009

A story by Margaret Krzyzelewski Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

Marge Krzyzelewski

When Seamus asked me to write a few pages about my Nambagura volunteer experience I have to admit I was a little bit stumped (and a bit miffed, homework, really Seamus, homework, nobody told me there would be homework). What do I write for two pages about this village that hasn’t been written about or experienced in every other village; we came, we helped, we connected, we were thanked. And then it dawned on me that it was this last part that set apart my Nambagura experience for me. From our first day of work for MARC, which was the offloading [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
September 10th 2009

A story by Jeroen Terry Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

The Jayman

The village of Asirohk (MALEKULA) Asirohk is about 1.5 hours walking from our anchorage with Alvei in Banam Bay. It’s a nice walk through lush forest, some other villages and the biggest part is along the beautiful coast. The walk is a bit up and down and the final part (about 15 minutes) is quite steep. But it’s all the sweat from walking under the tropical sun more than worth. When you arrive in Asirohk you are rewarded with the best view over-looking the bay and a warm welcome from the people of the village. The project here is to build [View Full Entry]

By Seamus
September 9th 2009

A story by Franzi Rudolphi Oceania » Vanuatu » Malekula

Yarrrrgh

“Two days-volunteer-diary” 9-10th of September 2009, by Franzi Rudolphi, Germany As a volunteer of Project MARC, I would like to describe my experiences I’ve had here in Malekula, this small and beautiful island belongs to Vanuatu. Originally I came to the South Pacific for sailing on Alvei and finally living my dream which appeared to me 12 years ago. After nearly two month of fulfilling it and getting much more than I ever expected, the work for Project MARC completed this awesome and incredible experience and I have to say it was an honor and a great luck for me that [View Full Entry]

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