Chauncy N. Rucker

I was thrilled to get to go to Ecuador with the 2006 CITTI Project Tour in July and I had a fantastic time. The experience was overwhelming in terms of what we saw and learned. In the tiny village where we worked, the hospitality of the parents and particularly the children was unbeliveably warm and wonderful.

There were 17 participants from all over the United States who traveled to Ecuador on the CITTI Project Tour. The group included professionals, interns, and a core leadership core. We were physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech/language pathotogists, assistive technology specialists, special education teachers, a photographer, a potter, and a carpenter. I was the oldest and our youngest was a college student. The talents and enthusiasm within the group were incredible!

We spent several days visiting non profits in small towns that were providing a variety of services to individuals with disabilities. Eventually though, we moved to a lovely hotel in the small town of Baños. Every morning we would rise, have breakfast, often have a meeting, and then take a private bus up the mountain road to the tiny village of Huambalo where we worked with dedicated professionals, parents and beautiful children with disabilities.

One of the most wonderful days of the entire tour was our first in Huambalo. When our bus arrived at the school the children and teachers greeted us as we piled off the bus. We spent time working in teams speaking to individual children with their parents in an attempt to discover what they needed and what it was that we could provide during the week. After spending all morning at this we were asked to sit on chairs outside the classroom and wait, because the children had planned a gift for us.

If you follow this link you will get to see photos of this event.

http://homepage.mac.com/chauncyrucker1/PhotoAlbum55.html

Select "Start Slideshow"

The first two shots are of the Tungurahua volcano, taken out the window of our bus. Tungurahua smoked and even made the earth tremble a bit while we were in Huambalo. However, as you may have guessed, Tungurahua was the Ecuador volcano that erupted 10 days after we left and destroyed much of the vegetable crops and covered Baños with ash and Huambalo with ash and small rocks.

The present was the children's dancing. There is a shot or two of that in the photo album on the web, but there is a movie of it at: http://www.connsensebulletin.com/dance2.mov

My apologies for my laughter and my dancing. Joy Zabala told me that she had a young girl who wanted to dance with someone who would twirl her and she introduced me to Paola. Twirl we did and we became best of friends.

Who couldn't love the people of Humbalo after such a gift!

For more details on the tour you can visit the CITTI Blog: http://citti.blogspot.com/ For much more information on The Citti Project, pictures of the 2006 tour, and information on the 2007 tour please see: http://www.cittiproject.org/

Let me just add two more pictures. The first is a picture of the 17 participants along with several of the people that work at the artisan cooperative in Salasaca. This is one of the non profits we visited before settling in Baños.

Just for fun I'm adding another photo I particularly fond of. I'm kissing Bridgett Perry, founder of the CITTI Project. I had just told her that normally one person can't have a significant impact on the world, but that I thought she may well be the exception.

Photo by Chaya Spector http://www.redeyephotos.com/