by James Best
I was later to learn, from some traumatised English newlyweds, that the zebra had taken a long time to die. Pinned by a croc biting one leg, he had managed to free himself repeatedly before being retaken, struggling and screaming in fear and pain the entire time. It was all too gladiatorial for me. I knew it was nature, and that’s the way it had always been, but I was still relieved Sam and I hadn’t seen it.
CHAPTER 33
When September ends
We left the park the next day. Maasai Mara had been seriously intense in several ways.
Outside the park Joseph took us to a traditional Maasai village, where you paid some money to be shown around. Given I had set Sam the school task of researching and writing about the culture only a few days earlier, this was perfect.
We learnt a man could have several wives, if he owned enough cattle to buy them with, but that each wife would have to live in a mud hut she built and maintained herself. The village would move holus-bolus every few years because that was the lifespan of the huts they built. If a man had no cattle he was expected to try to steal some from another village. There was a lot of fighting in Maasai culture, hence their fierce reputation.
The men all wore red cloaks. At the coming of age at fifteen, the Maasai youths were required to go out and kill a lion while wearing their cloak. The theory was that the lions learnt that humans wearing red were a threat and left them alone to tend their cattle. I tried to imagine Sam, who would be turning fifteen in a few months—or indeed any pampered teen from the West—hunting a lion with spears and arrows.
Sam and I joined in the jumping dance with the warriors. In Maasai culture being able to jump high is considered a sign of virility. Sam was, of course, a skilled jumper because he jumps up and down so much anyway. Maybe he could find himself a Maasai bride if I could just rustle up a few head of cattle.
We headed north towards Nairobi and stayed near the Hell’s Gate National Park. At dinner, Sam had yet another meltdown when I insisted he eat more of his meal. Embarrassed by his yelling and screaming, I got cross with him. These tantrums were becoming altogether too frequent. We returned to our room where I told him he would only be allowed to use his DS if he watched an hour of a movie of his choice. He chose Toy Story, and ended up watching the whole thing, which was fine by me; the more narrative he is exposed to the better.
Once again I reassessed my plans and objectives for Sam. I needed to draw a halt to this increasingly obstructionist and defiant behaviour, but getting him on board would require both a carrot and a stick.
I sat down with him for a talk. ‘Sam, you are getting in too much of a habit of saying no or negotiating, and not just saying yes to things sometimes.’
He looked sheepish. ‘Yeah.’
‘We need to change this,’ I said firmly.
‘Yeah.’
‘How about, if you start saying yes when I ask you to do something, that is, yes without arguing or negotiating, I’ll let you know you have done it, and if you do it a few times I’ll give you a secret reward.’
‘What’s the reward?’
I didn’t have one figured out. ‘It’s a secret.’
‘Hmm, okay.’
‘Also, if you argue or negotiate, especially over silly things, I’ll let you know, and you’ll receive negative points.’
He looked down at his feet. I gently raised his chin with my finger to make eye contact. ‘So, are you going to try really hard?’
‘Yes, I promise,’ he mumbled.
I’d planned for us to do a walking tour of Hell’s Gate National Park, which Mike and Lenneke back in Malawi had highly recommended. It sounded interesting but it was three hours long, and I felt I didn’t want to stress the two of us out anymore. We’d already seen such amazing wildlife in Maasai Mara. I decided to pull the plug.
Instead we took a one-hour boat tour of nearby Lake Naivasha, part of the Rift Valley system of lakes. It was a soft option but that was okay. We saw some interesting birds, a few hippos, and our guide threw a fish to a fish eagle, which scooped it out of the water with exquisite style and grace. An added advantage of our abbreviated sightseeing was that we would now arrive in Nairobi at lunchtime, allowing us extra hours to fit in some schoolwork and neuroplasticity exercises, and get back on track.
We climbed out of the Rift Valley for the last time, and inched our way further east across Africa.
Nairobi. Nai-robbery. Nai-Hermione Granger. I didn’t quite get the last of Sam’s mash-ups, as he called them, except that Sam continued to be obsessed with Hermione Granger, and her alter ego, Emma Watson.
But Sam was right: Nairobi had a reputation as a dangerous city, especially at night, and everyone we’d met who had visited there said it was the sort of place you stay in for as little time as possible. Get in, get out.
I actually didn’t think it was that bad, and Sam loved it. The crime rate apparently rivals that of Johannesburg, so maybe we were just lucky. The hostel we were staying at was basic but functional. There weren’t mosquito nets but the wi-fi was the fastest we’d seen.
However, there was one serious issue. McDonald’s. I’d just assumed that Nairobi would have several, but it turned out there were none, only three KFCs set away from the city centre. At first Sam wasn’t happy, but then he thought about it for a few seconds. ‘I can have McDonald’s when we get back to Sydney.’
Despite the thousand or so conversations we’d had about going to McDonald’s in Nairobi, when he discovered there wasn’t one it was dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders. It seemed he was measuring the sophistication of cities by what takeaway chains were present, and when he saw that Nairobi had big modern buildings and other trappings of a major city, McDonald’s didn’t really matter to him anymore.
We had a few days of school, shopping, neuroplasticity, restocking and recharging. Pythagoras, a PowerPoint on the Congo, public-speaking practice, chess (minus the missing bishop), boxing. Kick, kick, uppercut, uppercut, cross. Meeting people, talking to staff, ordering meals, playing pool. Riding pillion on motorbikes, walking down broken sidewalks, ignoring hawkers, discomforted by disabled beggars rattling coins in plastic cups. A blind ten-year-old boy, a woman with cerebral palsy propelling herself with her arms while her twisted legs trailed behind, a pre-school-aged girl thrusting her severely deformed wrist at us as we passed by.
For our third and final day in Nairobi, I’d organised for us to visit a school on the outskirts of the city where a cousin of mine, Denise, had worked as a volunteer. The school, funded by the Australian consulate and donations from Australian sponsors, taught children from Kibera, the largest slum in Africa.
Home to one and half million people, the tin and mud-brick shacks of Kibera latched onto the rolling hills; a chronic rash on a scarred surface. Denise’s close friend Sister Leonida was there to greet us. A vibrant and kindly soul, her sharp eyes examined us from behind her thick-rimmed glasses. She outlined the tremendous work the school did and introduced us to her staff members, who were all fascinated, of course, by Sam and what we were doing. We were well used to that.
The head teacher, Jeremiah, took us for a walking tour of Kibera, which he had called home for all of his life. Smartly dressed in a pressed white business shirt and tie, Jeremiah had a gentle and tilted smile. He rolled up his sleeves and loosened his tie when we walked out into the searing sunlight. As a child, he had been bright enough to earn a scholarship to complete his schooling and, subsequently, an education degree at university. As a teacher for the most disadvantaged, he was now giving back to his community in spades.
We walked down narrow winding alleyways, where rubbish lined the open drains, children tumbled through doorways and chatter filled the air. Rusting tin roofs covered tiny mud-brick houses, doors open, but their dark interiors impenetrable as we squinted in the sunlight. Overhead was a spider web of tilting electricity poles, thick black powerlines and fuse boxes.
Jeremiah apprised us of life in Kibera. ‘A typical house is about six squ
are metres, and somewhere between six and twenty people live in that space. During the day there is a table, but this is packed up at night and people sleep together on the floor.’
I was astonished. ‘Is there a lot of crime here?’ I asked.
‘In some areas, but not this one. I was brought up here. If someone came up now and stole your camera, they would chase him, catch him, and beat him to death.’
He smiled as I replied, ‘Well, I certainly hope that doesn’t happen!’
Despite the poverty, people were smiling and laughing. Jeremiah told us about the sense of community spirit. ‘You know, you see people who live in big fancy houses in other areas of Nairobi, and they don’t even know their neighbours. Here, everyone knows each other and looks after each other.’
I suspected Jeremiah, intelligent and articulate, was a local hero. People smiled and nodded at him. We were welcomed because we were in his company. I looked at the communal water pump, funded by the World Bank, where women and children filled their yellow plastic containers, at the local medical clinic where apparently some doctors and nurses stole medications to sell to private clinics, at the garbage, the chaos, the confinement, and was in awe that he had come from this to be where he was today.
Sam was cool. This sort of experience didn’t faze him at all these days. I thought back to Cape Town, where the sights and smells of the township had distressed him so much. We had come a long way in a geographical sense, but he had come a long way in many ways.
Back at the hostel, Sam jumped onto the bed to settle for the night, and several of the wooden slats under the mattress snapped, leaving the mattress tilting at a thirty-degree slope.
He was worried. ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured him. I took one for the team and swapped beds with him, spending an uncomfortable night sliding off the mattress.
Early the next morning we left the creaking city and drove south to Tanzania. Along the way our altitude descended and the temperature ascended. It was flat and dry. Sam remarked that the landscape resembled Namibia, but the occasional flashing red robes of the Maasai driving the cattle on the side of the road revealed we were in east Africa.
Our penultimate African border crossing into Tanzania was the usual slow-motion affair, but then the flat straight road started to undulate as we approached a massive conical volcanic mountain and swung around its foothills.
On the southern side of Mount Meru we cruised into Arusha. The tourist town served the Northern Circuit, a collection of spectacular national parks that dot northern Tanzania. Arusha was full of tour guides, hawkers and more tour guides. Outside the front door of the hostel, people standing nearby would suddenly gather, like moths to the flame, with a patter of questions.
‘Hey, where you from?’
‘My friend, my friend, what do you want to see?’
‘Do you recognise me?’
Whatever it took to start a conversation. Unfortunately, it was just about impossible to finish one without getting confrontational.
Apart from this hassle, the town oozed charm. The mystical, smooth upper slopes of Mount Meru peered through breaks in the cloud hovering around its waist, like a shy lady aware of her beauty. Flashes of mauve jacaranda blooms decorated the bustling city streets, where red-cloaked Maasai strutted, veiled Islamic women travelled in groups and boda bodas and minivans honked and weaved. It was a town small enough to be digestible to the newcomer, but large enough to have vibrancy and vitality. Arusha was a liveable city.
We sorted out money and SIM cards for Tanzania, our last African country, accompanied by Morton, a Danish tourist we’d met in the hostel in Nairobi, who’d joined us on the bus. Despite his youthful appearance, Morton had a master’s degree in international relations and was a seasoned traveller. He was a rolling stone, trundling his way around Africa, trying to figure out what to do next with his life. He was also a thinker, enjoying chess challenges with Sam and philosophical discussions with me. Morton had a brother with Down syndrome and was evangelically enthusiastic about the purpose of our trip: improving outcomes for a disabled loved one. Another welcome support, another companion for both Sam and me. We weren’t to know then how great a role he’d come to play to our future travels.
Even though I now had a SIM card, my phone was out of battery and we’d arrived in what we’d soon learn was a daily blackout, usually ending towards sunset.
That evening, with the power finally back on, Sam and I discussed going home to Australia and I confirmed what I’d previously only hinted at: we were going home sooner than planned.
He looked me in the eye. ‘For sure?’
‘For sure.’
‘So I don’t have to get seven eights in a row.’
‘No, you don’t, but I think you deserve to go home. You’ve tried very hard. You should be proud of what you’ve achieved in Africa.’
Sam sat back, exhaled, and beamed. ‘Yes, I am.’
He starting singing the Green Day song, ‘When September Ends’. While the song lyrics actually explore American paranoia after the September 11 terrorist attacks, they also summed up Sam’s point of view perfectly.
CHAPTER 34
Rolling with the punches
We awoke to a sparkling blue sky day in Arusha. Mount Meru rested peacefully above. My sister-in-law had lived in Arusha for two years, working as a teacher, so she’d teed us up to meet her very good friend Onesmo, a Maasai businessman.
I called Onesmo, who picked us up with his nine-year-old daughter, Siyana, and took us to lunch in a very flash Lebanese restaurant he part-owned. The restaurant was in the upmarket part of town where the British colonialists had erected their grand estates and institutions. The elegant piles, with their broad verandahs and contorted ancient trees in sweeping gardens, were where ‘matters of state’ had once been discussed by district commissioners and officers of the Empire wearing crisply starched uniforms. Many of these buildings were now home to a range of restaurants, offering cuisines from all over the world to the well-to-do of the city, many of whom were expats.
Onesmo, Sam and I chatted while we were served mixed mezze plates, pita bread and lamb kebabs on white linen draped over an outdoor table. The sunlight dappled the lawn and an excellent jazz band played near the bar. This is not too bad at all, I thought to myself. Sam, however, was being autistic, speaking little, drawing his legs up onto the chair and ignoring Onesmo’s attempts to engage him in conversation.
I explained what was going on to Onesmo. ‘He always does this. In a new environment with new people, he goes into his shell. With time he will start to open up to you and you will start to see more of the real Sam.’
Onesmo, who was astute and good with children, didn’t need much convincing and kept trying to engage Sam. And sure enough, Sam soon started to open up. We discussed African political history, including apartheid, Mugabe and Idi Amin, Sam’s school and, of course, our trip and the concepts behind it.
Sam fired question after question at me, while Onesmo looked on bemused. ‘What would happen if you mashed up the leader of Zimbabwe who starts with an M with Idi Amin?’
‘I think you would have a very bad person,’ I replied.
Sam leant forward. ‘As bad as Stalin?’
‘I don’t know, Sam.’ It wasn’t a comparison I’d thought a lot about.
‘I don’t think he would be as bad as Stalin. Stalin was the worst. Do you think Idi Amin would throw me out of a helicopter to the crocodiles if I tried to punch him in the nose?’
‘I’m not sure, Sam. Probably, er, I really don’t know. But you don’t have to worry about that because Idi Amin is dead,’ I said, trying to find an answer that would satisfy him.
Sam pumped his fist near his shoulder. ‘Yes, he died in disgrace.’
Onesmo drove us back to the hostel where I then filmed Morton and Sam playing chess; the score was one all. Sam was a good winner but a sore loser. Morton smiled and shrugged. We all headed out with some other ba
ckpackers to a Chinese restaurant two doors up that had a good reputation. It was our second big meal of the day and the second challenging cuisine for Sam, but he did all right, apart from talking incessantly and asking the same questions over and over. We left earlier than the others and headed back to the hostel, both sleeping well that night.
The next day Benison had organised for us to meet up with Kerri, an American special-needs teacher now living in Moshi, a one-hour drive from Arusha. Kerri was the director of programs for Connects Autism Tanzania, the peak autism NGO in the country. Kerri worked with Mama Grace, an inspiring Tanzanian woman and mother of a twenty-three-year-old man with autism called Erick. As a child, Erick’s erratic behaviour and lack of speech meant he hardly got any education at all, despite Grace’s best efforts, and he remains largely non-verbal. Her advocacy largely fell on deaf ears, despite her strong belief that Erick did have skills and intelligence that were not being developed.
Although he was placed in a special-education unit, it was a kilometre from the bus stop in front of the mainstream school; he walked the kilometre alone every day. After a few years, the parents of other children on the bus became concerned that hanging around a disabled child somehow put their own children at risk and encouraged their kids to kick Erick off the bus every day. Mama Grace had to figure out a way to get him to school so she bought a bicycle for him, and worked hard to teach him how to ride it alone, a massive expense and inconvenience that none of the other parents had to face.
As a young adult, Erick faced an uncertain future in a country where there was no vocational training for young people with disabilities. Stuck in a education facility that was just re-teaching him the basic academic skills he already possessed, Erick was floundering, and Grace knew it.
Erick was in the habit of scavenging precious glimpses of television shows he liked by peering through the windows of shops, but he didn’t like football and in 2010, when the football World Cup came to South Africa, every television set in the city was constantly tuned to it. Frustrated and confused when the shopkeepers ignored his pleas to change the channel, he threw some rocks through a store window. There was a furious reaction: a vigilante group was organised and paid for, with the express intention of killing Erick. Grace, alerted to the danger by an informant, hastily convened a community meeting with the police and successfully prevented a disaster.