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Vanuatu We spent the month of September 2006 with Project Marc in the remote island country of Vanuatu... this is the story of our trip!  We arrived in Vanuatu on a sunny morning at the start of September, not sure quite what to expect from the next month. We would soon be exploring some of the most remote parts of Vanuatu, a country made up of an archipelago of more than 80 islands in the South Pacific. We had signed up with Project MARC, a charity which provides medical care to the remote communities of the outer islands. However, for the next few days we were staying in the capital, Port Vila, a pretty and cosmopolitan town nestling above a busy harbour. This is the view from our hotel balcony, the Kaiviti Motel.
 We joined a team of other volunteers from New Zealand, Canada and the USA and set off from Port Vila aboard the catamaran S/V Augustina. Over two days the Augustina carried us north to the west coast of the island of Espiritu Santo. Here we met the tall ship S/V Alvei, which would be our floating base camp for the next few weeks.
 Life aboard the S/V Alvei was quite a change from what we were used to at home in the UK! The ship operates using traditional sailing techniques, without much in the way of modern equipment. We bathed by swiming in the sea off the side of the boat, or taking a shower in a freshwater spring on the shore. Clothes were washed in sea water and hung out to dry on the sail ropes. This is our little cabin. One night we were woken by the sound of a whale singing as it swam around the ship, the sound reverberating through the hull.
 From the Alvei we set off on week-long trips into the interior of the island. The villages here are isolated, most only accessible by boat and foot. Here the people still live much as they have done for generations - walking to work every day in their "gardens" high up on the hills, and then carrying their produce home the only way possible, on their backs. We trekked up the hills to reach these villages, carrying basic medical supplies so that we could hold clinics for the local people. We also carried a GPS receiver and a set of survey forms - to map out the locations of the villages, the populations and their health needs.
The villagers could not have been more welcoming, setting out mats for us to hold medical clinics on the grass outside, and bringing us food and drink. This picture shows the staples of our diet - grapefruit was in season and provided dessert every day! We ate a lot of taro, cocunut, and cabbage, and occasionally had fish or pork.
This is the medical clinic in the small village of Paki, which the local village health care worker was kind enough to let us use. We saw patients on the grass outside, and slept on the floor inside. The nearest fresh water supply was a difficult half hour trek away.
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