Sam's Best Shot

by James Best

  The next day was a bit of a turning point in the trip for me. I finally had a completely free day, no laundry or shopping, nothing at all. I was able to focus completely on Sam. We finished his schoolwork by lunchtime, and then we had a day of firsts.

  It was the first time Sam ever made breakfast for himself—and for me, with my supervision.

  For the first time on the trip we did four neuroplasticity exercises in one day—chess, boxing, cards and throwing and catching a ball—and Sam seemed to be engaged and improving on all four skill sets.

  I posted the first external hard drive full of filming from the first month back by courier to Australia.

  We had our first swim of the trip at the pool at the hostel.

  Sam wrote his first ever postcard. It was to his Aunt Helen, and read as follows:

  Dear Auntie Helen,

  We started out at Cape Town then in Hermanus then in Mossel Bay then in Wilderness then in Port Elizabeth then in Chintsa then in Coffee Bay then in Sarni Point [sic] then in Durban then flight to Namibia and stopped at Chameleon. From Samuel Best.

  What it lacked in description it made up for in detail.

  As for the neuroplasticity exercises, the boxing improved faster than the chess, with Sam starting to get a rhythm to our punching combinations. The chess, however, didn’t seem to interest him that much; well, not yet. The ball throwing was definitely sky-rocketing, with Sam taking some pride in developing a skill that had previously eluded him. It became apparent to me that this was more than just neuroplasticity and increasing brain traffic: it seemed that self-esteem was also tied up in all this.

  And also for the first time I introduced a new motivation for Sam to improve his social and communication skills: scoring the day out of ten. It came about through a discussion I’d had with Sam a few days prior. I had been trying, yet again, to explain why we weren’t going home any time soon, and my strategy of just saying ‘We’ll see’ was wearing thin.

  He had pleaded with me again. ‘But I want to go back to Sydney tomorrow.’

  ‘Sam, we can’t,’ I’d replied softly. ‘We’re here to make you better. To make you normal.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be normal,’ he’d protested.

  I’d absorbed the confronting statement, which went to the core of the ethics of this intervention. I went for a long walk to reflect. He may have believed he didn’t want to be ‘normal’—well, not if it involved this much effort—and perhaps my choice of words was poor, but I knew as his parent that it was in his best interests if we were able to smooth over his areas of weakness as much as possible. At the end of the day, this experiment was not about obtaining a statistically significant positive result in the Griffith University study, it was about Sam being able to have a girlfriend or hold a job.

  So I decided to change tack. I needed to get him motivated. I set up a scoring system where the judge, myself, had control of the game. I told Sam if he scored eight out of ten for behaviour seven days in a row we could go home. His eyes immediately lit up; he had something to aim for now. He just failed to realise I had complete discretion over what his score would be, and therefore complete control over the timing of our return.

  It was deceptive, but I believed it was in his best interests. One of the leading voices on autism, Temple Grandin, was interviewed for Andrew Solomon’s multi-award-winning book about raising challenging children, Far From the Tree. Grandin, who is herself on the spectrum, firmly believes that the higher functioning you make someone with autism, the happier he or she is likely to be, even if this sometimes involves a little ‘tough love’ on the parent’s part: ‘Some of these kids, you’ve got to jerk them out of it. If you’re not somewhat intrusive you’re not going to get anywhere with them.’

  Another leading voice in the autism community, John Elder Robison, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s in his forties, explored similar themes in his New York Times bestselling memoir, Look Me in the Eye:

  Even at sixteen years of age it would have been easy for me to retreat from dealing with humans and move into a world within my own mind…It was almost as though I stood in front of Door Number One and Door Number Two, as perplexed as any game show contestant and with much more at stake…I chose Door Number One and in doing so moved farther away from the world of machines and circuits—a comfortable world of muted colours, soft light, and mechanical perfection—and closer to the anxiety-filled, bright and disorderly world of people. As I consider that choice thirty years later, I think the kids who choose Door Number Two may not end up able to function in society.

  Who better to turn to for advice than those who had walked a similar path to Sam? Their words allowed me to keep the faith in difficult times.

  That night we had KFC for dinner. Sam is usually promised McDonald’s once a week in Sydney as a reward for good behaviour. He had had it twice in South Africa, but Namibia, amazingly, doesn’t have a single McDonald’s. I suspected this was also going to be the case in the countries to come. As we sat in the vinyl booth, Sam spontaneously said something positive about Africa for the first time: ‘I want to go back to South Africa.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, ‘Why do you want to go there?’

  ‘They have good internet and McDonald’s.’

  Of course.

  After dinner Sam chilled out in our room listening to music while I chatted to a group of hostel guests including a young woman from Zanzibar called Natalia. When she found out about our trip and its purpose, she went quiet for a while before turning to me holding an old banknote I didn’t recognise. ‘When I was growing up in Zanzibar there was an old man who always sat outside a store near our house. He used to say hello to me every day when I walked past. When I told him one day I was moving to Namibia with my new husband, he pulled out this banknote.’ It was an old Tanzanian five-hundred shilling note, so tattered and worn the images on the note were barely visible. She continued, carefully: ‘He gave it to me for luck on my journey. I have kept it on my person ever since. My journey is over, I am staying in Namibia. I would like to give it to you and Sam for luck on yours.’

  There was a silence in the group. I smiled, swallowed back my tears, and thanked her.

  CHAPTER 9

  Lion country

  We were due to leave for Etosha National Park the next day, and then I had planned for a few days in the coastal city of Swakopmund before another three-day tour to the south of Namibia. After that our options were limited. Further travel in Namibia was difficult unless we hired a four-wheel drive and it could be dangerous if we broke down in the middle of nowhere. There was no roadside assistance service. Local transport barely existed in this desert country.

  And then there was Botswana. I had been told that budget tourism was actively discouraged in Botswana. Government tourism policy was explicitly directed at high-end travellers. Our best option would be to just join an organised tour that took us straight across Botswana all the way to Victoria Falls.

  This would put us way ahead of our one country per month schedule, but that was okay. It would mean more time sitting by Lake Malawi. Or maybe we could backtrack from Victoria Falls into Botswana again if we wanted to, or perhaps we could go to Zimbabwe. The travel guide agreed to see if there were two tickets available in around three weeks. I was happy we had a plan, but anxious I wasn’t getting Sam involved in these decisions. I’d hoped he’d be more involved in the actual challenges of travel, but these decisions were hard enough for me, and a long way from Sam’s Zone of Proximal Development.

  Later that day, one of hostel’s travel guides, a genial Namibian fellow, caught up with Sam and me as we were leaving the hostel. ‘We have spoken to the tour group organising the Botswana trip and they were a bit concerned about Sam and whether he would be okay on a ten-day overland trip,’ he said. ‘They were worried about whether this would be problematic for the other travellers.’

  My face dropped. ‘Oh.’

  He looked embarrassed. ‘They would like to know how he g
oes on the three-day trip before they decide. So when you get back they’ll let us know.’ He paused and added, ‘Hopefully it will be okay.’

  I forced a smile and a nod. ‘Sure.’ I could understand the company’s concerns, but I still felt gutted.

  On the truck the next day was a veritable United Nations, with Germans, Canadians, Swiss, a Korean girl and a Japanese man, all headed to a safari at Etosha, world famous for its wildlife. Heading north out of Windhoek, we drove down Beethhovenstrasse, Bahnhofstrasse, Robert Mugabe Avenue and Nelson Mandela Avenue. We soon left the small city and started across the flat plains. Impressive mountains occasionally tipped the otherwise flat horizon that stretched in every direction. I was reminded of old westerns, and outback Australia. Olive green scrub was scattered higgledy-piggledy over the plains and hills, above cream and pale green grasses that sat on the rust-orange earth.

  Anthills started to appear; three-metre-high witch’s hats of clay. Occasionally they surrounded black tree trunks, and some had bushes sprouting from their peaks, looking like skinny men with crazy hair. Kind of what I looked like.

  On the wide open road we passed underneath a storm which covered half the sky, with crepuscular rays of light emanating from its edge. Sam was intrigued. ‘God is coming,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I replied.

  Once we had entered Etosha, we immediately started spotting animals on the roadside. There was a limping zebra, all alone, easy pickings for the lions. I thought of her awful impending fate.

  Sam piped up. ‘I can see a giraffe.’ I couldn’t see it, and nor could anyone else. A confabulation? Two minutes later the rest of us saw it; my boy must have eagle eyes. The giraffe spread his legs, a collapsing quadruped, and lowered his head down to the nearly dry waterhole. Impalas and springboks scattered from the noise of the truck. A lone bull elephant was spied ripping branches off a tree, with one large eye fixed on us.

  It was nearly sunset when we reach the campsite, which was more like a village surrounded by a large fence to deter lions. That day we were the ones inside the enclosure, not the animals. Sam slowly realised that there was no option besides a tent. He was not happy.

  The Namibian driver and his assistant threw the tents off the roof of the truck and everyone pitched in to help. Sam decided to put his foot down. ‘I am not sleeping in a tent.’

  ‘Sam, you have to,’ I replied.

  ‘I’ll sleep over there.’ He pointed to some nearby holiday flats within the enclosure.

  I tried to explain the situation to him. ‘Sam, we’re not allowed to stay there. Other people own those.’

  He thrust his fist towards the holiday flats. ‘I’ll make them let me sleep there.’ While my back was turned, he took off. I ran after him, and he ran further. I eventually caught up with him as he ran through a restaurant. He was yelling as I approached him. ‘I am not staying in a tent! You can’t make me! I want a better father! You are a Voldemort father!’

  The concerned restaurant staff came out to see what was going on. Eventually Sam agreed to sit down in the gutter outside the restaurant and chat and calm down. A protracted negotiation ensued. Sam should parley with the North Koreans; he would wear them down soon enough.

  Eventually we walked back to the tents near the truck, which were now all assembled. He held my hand as we lumbered along, knowing he had done wrong. The driver said he could sleep in the truck if he wanted to. Sam was happy with this. He grabbed his Nintendo DS and sat in the toilet block, not wanting to have anything to do with the tent.

  The rest of the group walked over to a nearby waterhole and watched the spectacular sunset but I dared not leave Sam in the toilet block so I had to sit that one out. The limitations of travelling with a child with special needs, I suppose.

  After dinner I was able to talk Sam into walking with the others back to the waterhole. There was a viewing area above the lion-proof fence, and we looked down on the waterhole, which was surrounded by rocks and lit by floodlights. Like a choreographed pantomime, a black rhino sauntered down to the edge for a drink. A few minutes later a large herd of zebras played their part and came down beside him. Off in the distance a lion roared, which spooked the herd. They hesitated, appearing to decide if continuing to drink was worth the risk. But Sam’s patience had worn thin. I had to decide between forcing him to stay, so that I could see what played out in this game of predator and prey, and the risk of over-stressing Sam. We headed back to the tents.

  On the way, negotiations continued. ‘Tents are for poor people,’ Sam said.

  ‘There’s no other option.’

  ‘I’ll sleep in the truck.’ He looked at me. ‘The man said I could.’

  I didn’t want him sleeping in the truck, as I didn’t want him alone at night and I certainly didn’t want to sleep there when I had a mattress in a tent. ‘How about just trying ten minutes in the tent, just to see how it goes.’

  ‘Okay,’ he acquiesced. ‘But only ten minutes and then I’ll go in the truck.’

  Ten minutes became thirty, and then Sam remembered. But the truck was now locked. Good. ‘So now the tent is the only option. It’s not too bad,’ I said.

  ‘Unfair!’ he whined. ‘I want the truck.’

  ‘Just lie down and see how you go,’ I said gently.

  The others returned from the waterhole. The lions had appeared after all. At least Sam went to sleep in the tent. As the group chatted, jackals flitted around the site looking for scraps from the tables and during the night I tried to discern between the snores coming from the tents and the lion roars and elephant calls off in the distance. It was difficult sometimes. Hyenas joined the chorus before dawn.

  We arose at 5.30 a.m. to get a start on the animal spotting at the best time of day. The group scrambled to break camp to hit the waterholes early.

  As we drove through Etosha on the rough dirt roads, animals seemed to be everywhere. The zebras and springboks were so common the sightings soon became uneventful. Wildebeest, giraffes, ostriches, black-faced impalas and red hartebeests were spotted. At a waterhole, a yellow and red tawny eagle sat on a dead tree. A large wildly plumed secretary bird pecked the sand and rocks for grubs. It reminded Sam of the phoenix in Harry Potter. Flamingos filled a large waterway, and a hyena bloated with his night’s kill lay digesting.

  At every intersection of the winding dirt roads, a sign instructed you not to get out of your car. This was lion country. And sure enough, soon two lions loped towards us across the plains. The serious cameramen on the bus went nuts with their telephoto lenses. A Japanese guy had a lens on his camera that looked like it belonged on a surface-to-air missile.

  A German teenager who was sitting next to Sam teased him. ‘Do you think they have smelt you, Sam?’

  ‘No!’ he said quickly.

  Smiling cheekily, she continued. ‘They like the young ones. You will be first to be eaten.’

  ‘No!’ he grinned, getting the joke.

  The lions veered off. No one was eaten; well, not that day.

  Etosha, which means ‘wide great place’ in Oshiwambo, celebrated its centenary in 2007, which makes it one of the oldest national parks in the world. Flat rocky plains scattered with scrubby mopane trees and saltbush surround a salt pan 130 kilometres wide. The pan was an inland sea a million years ago. We drove down onto it and walked around. It felt eerie, knowing there was nothing but salt-covered dry mud so far in every direction.

  As the truck climbed off the pan, we saw some oryx in the tall grassveld, a beautiful hardy antelope that can go for days without water. It is Namibia’s national icon, surviving in the oldest desert in the world.

  During lunch at a campsite, we walked to another waterhole. Five elephants slowly rolled in. Sam thought it was hysterically funny when one of them did a large poo in the water. So did I.

  They were magnificent, and we were all transfixed, Sam included, as we watched them from a viewing platform only metres away. Their gentle perambulation, and the way they splashed themselves
down, flinging water and mud with their trunks, showed a grace and serenity that belied their size.

  Upon returning to the campsite to eat lunch, we heard there were now twenty-five elephants at the waterhole. Milner, our driver and guide, encouraged us to return, but Sam was by then playing his Nintendo DS in the truck.

  ‘Sam, do you want to stay in the truck?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, not looking up.

  ‘Don’t wander off anywhere,’ I said firmly.

  He continued to be transfixed by the game. ‘Okay.’

  I left Sam in the truck and joined the others at the waterhole. By then the elephants numbered fifteen. Young males wrestled with their trunks, infants snuggled next to their mothers, and an old matriarch watched us warily from the side of the pack.

  When I returned to the truck, Sam was gone. Milner said Sam had run off towards the restaurant area without answering questions about where he was going. In a quickening trot I checked the toilets and the shop. No Sam. My search widened as my fears about what might have happened grew. Surely he wouldn’t have run out the entrance to the village, past the lion-proof fence? Surely there was nothing out there he would be interested in? Surely he wouldn’t try to get himself back to Sydney?

  Fuck.

  Images of Sam being attacked by lions swirled through my head as I sprinted around the complex yelling his name. Milner and some of the others from the truck quickly joined the search. After fifteen excruciating minutes he was found in a toilet block in the other direction. He was merely constipated. He’d circled back behind Milner to find a quiet toilet without the latter realising. Living in your own autistic world means you are sometimes harder to notice.

  ‘Sam, you nearly gave me a heart attack!’ I was almost crying with relief as I struggled to catch my breath.