Blogs from Santo, Vanuatu, Oceania - page 2

We made it to Vanuatu after a great day at Dravuni. Our first stop is the island of Espirito Santo and the city of Luganville. Not much of a city really. Most of the construction was done by the US during WWII. The dock still had some of the original quonset huts. The town had about 11,000 people. We had set up a shore excursion from the boat to go in a Dugout Conoe up the RIRI river to a Blue Hole. It was a nice ride there. Our guides were sawing out boards for seats when we got there. It started pouring rain and the first Dugout, 5 of the biggest guys got in an almost capsized the boat. It was pretty funny stuff. We paddled up the river (ended up not being the RIRI) ... read more

In the midst of all that is happening with our Clinic Construction Expedition there have been several side projects. One of these took the form of an immunization campaign. While building at the construction site continued, another Project MARC team assisted the Vanuatu Ministry of Health with the delivery and administering of "Stik Meresin blong Olgeta Pikinini" (Bislama for Vaccine). The campaign itself only took a week. The preparations to make it all happen took up the week and a half prior. Here’s the story. Earlier this month Project MARC was asked to help with the immunizations along the West Coast of Santo by the managers of Rural and Maternal Health for the province, Valma Banga and Lilly Peter. We had originally planned to work with one of their teams in the Big Bay area during ... read more

Sat 14thAug We had a pretty rough take off due to the bad weather in Adelaide, but the rest of the flights were pretty good. It was warm and humid, just perfect after a freezing cold few weeks. It was a pity that I brought a barking cough with me. The mini bus we caught was a very worn out red bus, but it got us to our hotel in one piece more or less. The room at City Lodge Hotel was pretty basic but that went with the budget price. After dumping our bags, we bolted to the nearest café to have our first coffee in seven weeks due to our diet. It was great, and so was the view. After the coffee, we decided it was too late for lunch so we went for ... read more

A long way north but it’s still raining - much warmer though which is great, it was really quite cool in Tanna. We grabbed a cab and went to see if we could find a room in the only place in town that mentioned a beach. No problem, this island as well was very quiet with very few tourists. The beach at Beachfront Resort was black sand and the water was very stirred up from all the rain but the place was very pretty. Again the bungalows were quite basic but did have hot water and the staff put fresh flowers everywhere. A tradition here and makes things look so much nicer. A tour guide came to us in the resort and asked what we wanted to do. There were a number of tours we wanted ... read more

Tänk dig en ö där du där du kan besöka avlägsna byar där inte mycket ändrats de senaste 2000 år sen, ha en en av världens vackraste stränder helt för dig själv, vada genom en nyupptäckt grotta och därefter simma tillbaka genom djungel och djupa raviner, snorkla i ett Blue Hole samt slutligen dyka på ett makalöst 200 meter långt vrak från andra världskriget. Addera att haven utanför bågnar av fisk och att det finns över 700 arter av orkidéer i bergen. Finns det verkligen en sån ö? Ja det gör det! Den heter Esperito Santo och jag är kär! Men låt mig ta det från början. Det här var dagen jag äntligen skulle få besök. Jag rullade ut den röda mattan, pollerade mässingorkestern och knuffade fram den lokala frikyrkokören: mannen, myten & snuskuriren Andreas Terner ... read more