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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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“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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The Mystical Power of Music in Malekula I recently had a most unique set of experiences I would like to share with you. It is the experience of cultural exchange and the universal power of melody and rhythm. I was lured to the small island nation of Vanuatu via email some months before by my old pal Seamus O’Bryan with the tantalizing idea that a musician, particularly a singing guitarist, was worth his weight in gold in terms of diplomatic relations. I however retained some doubts as to the entire truth of my friends’ claim that I might actually be as [View Full Entry]

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Project MARC’s September expedition could easily be called the most successful expedition of the season. There are thousands of photos taken by over a dozen volunteers that tell some of the innumerable stories from the month. As for the telling of the stories, I’d prefer to leave some of that to the volunteers themselves. They were the ones who truly got to experience the magic of working for Project MARC in Vanuatu. The villages we visited and people we worked with were amazing and so very grateful for our assistance. In most places our volunteers were only assisting the local [View Full Entry]

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Travelblog August 2009 This year’s August excursions took me to around the islands, but in all honesty, I had very little to do with this expedition. This expedition was all about a pair of real heroes. This expedition was all about Dr. David and Heather Churcher. Dr. Churcher is a modern day Superman. He’s an expert sailor, dentist extraordinaire, and last but not least…Australian. Indeed, this guy would make the comic book Superman look like a lazy slob. Like Project MARC’s founders, Henk and Nelleke Meuzelaar, Dr. Churcher was a cruising sailor with a med [View Full Entry]

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Travelblog July Part 5 The weekend in Luganville was extremely restful and allowed me to reorganize plans for the rest of the month. Alanna left us on Monday, and I sent Will and Iza to Vila where they had planned to spend the rest of the month. By Tuesday all the original expedition members had flown off to their destinations, so that same day I caught a truck up to the Big Bay Bush, and by Thursday I had a new set of volunteers. The first trip to the Big Bay Bush was to survey the roads for safety, before taking [View Full Entry]

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Travelblog July Part 4 “If you come across an 30 inch tall, naked infant that is holding a 36 inch blade vertically over his head as he stares you in the face and cries his little eyes out in fear…you may be in Sulemari Village.” On our first night in Sulemari, the boys in our team went to the river to have a swim and wash the road dirt from our backs. On our return to the village we were shirtless, dripping wet, and showing a great deal of exposed WHITE skin. When we stumbled out of the jungle and into [View Full Entry]

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