Sunday, August 06, 2006
Adios Huambalo
Contributed by Sonia Thacher
I’m writing from Ambato, where I am spending my last week in Ecuador (sob!) with 3 other people, tying up some loose ends with various organizations. We are going to be sharing some accessiblity tools (head wands, mouth sticks, and hand sticks to allow for typing without traditional use of the fingers) to a group of computer users with disabilities, reconfiguring the doors at a sheltered workshop, throwing a whole bunch of communication aids at 2 special education schools, and finishing the wheelchair ramp at the center in Huambalo.
Everyone was sad to leave the center (well, actually, we never spent much time IN the center, per se, as it was being used as a volcano shelter so everyone got shifted to the regular ed school down the street): it was a pretty emotional goodbye for all of us. The last day of our time in Huambalo, which coincided with the last day of school, was commemorated with a whole pig and roughly 300 speeches by various officials.
Personally, I’m going to remember that week in different ways from the culminating ceremonies. I’m going to remember Andrea and Lori stumbling back off the van after carrying a grown, non-ambulatory woman for about a mile when a mudslide took away the road to her house: dirty but triumphant, they still did their home visit. I’ll remember the taste of the llampingoches (oh so tasty fried potato things) served at lunch, and how pleased the women from the community were when we said we loved the comida tipica they made for us.
I’ll remember how my colleagues learned to let go of adaptive spoons when they realized that everyone who knew Miguel really WANTED to feed him with their own hands. Ill remember how excited the kids were when Chaya asked THEM to document the work taking place--and how one non-verbal child absolutely insisted that I also take a picture of him going down the slide. Coming as I do from a country where the children are so often so very privileged and unkind to one another, it’s going to be hard for me to forget how beautifully the kids in this community cared for each other and made do with tiny things. And the beautiful faces of all of the chidren: I can’t wait to share those pictures with everyone.
I’m writing from Ambato, where I am spending my last week in Ecuador (sob!) with 3 other people, tying up some loose ends with various organizations. We are going to be sharing some accessiblity tools (head wands, mouth sticks, and hand sticks to allow for typing without traditional use of the fingers) to a group of computer users with disabilities, reconfiguring the doors at a sheltered workshop, throwing a whole bunch of communication aids at 2 special education schools, and finishing the wheelchair ramp at the center in Huambalo.
Everyone was sad to leave the center (well, actually, we never spent much time IN the center, per se, as it was being used as a volcano shelter so everyone got shifted to the regular ed school down the street): it was a pretty emotional goodbye for all of us. The last day of our time in Huambalo, which coincided with the last day of school, was commemorated with a whole pig and roughly 300 speeches by various officials.
Personally, I’m going to remember that week in different ways from the culminating ceremonies. I’m going to remember Andrea and Lori stumbling back off the van after carrying a grown, non-ambulatory woman for about a mile when a mudslide took away the road to her house: dirty but triumphant, they still did their home visit. I’ll remember the taste of the llampingoches (oh so tasty fried potato things) served at lunch, and how pleased the women from the community were when we said we loved the comida tipica they made for us.
I’ll remember how my colleagues learned to let go of adaptive spoons when they realized that everyone who knew Miguel really WANTED to feed him with their own hands. Ill remember how excited the kids were when Chaya asked THEM to document the work taking place--and how one non-verbal child absolutely insisted that I also take a picture of him going down the slide. Coming as I do from a country where the children are so often so very privileged and unkind to one another, it’s going to be hard for me to forget how beautifully the kids in this community cared for each other and made do with tiny things. And the beautiful faces of all of the chidren: I can’t wait to share those pictures with everyone.
