As we emerged from our jetlag over the next couple of days, there were three occasions where Sam’s progress was evident.
First, Benison, Sam and I went shopping. We sat down for a coffee in the local shopping centre, the glare of the artificial lights reminding me of Nancy, the lovely Ugandan in Kapchorwa; there were no live chickens for sale in Norton Plaza, Leichhardt. It seemed somewhat the poorer for it.
Sam piped up. ‘I want a Sprite.’
Benison rose to buy him one, but I grabbed her arm to stop her. Sam headed off to the shop by himself after requesting some money from me. She watched him as he stood at the shop counter waiting to be served.
‘Yep, it’s there, he’s changed,’ she said. ‘And his speech is different.’
‘I just hope it doesn’t go away,’ I replied.
She frowned. ‘We just have to keep pushing.’
The following day my mother and sisters hosted a welcome home. Sam did his usual trick of hanging out in the bedroom with my nephew’s electronic games, but he emerged when the barbecue meal was served, sat at the table and chatted about Africa. And chatted, and chatted, and chatted. I was now used to this, but my family wasn’t. My sister, Mary-Anne, turned to me and smiled; I knew what she was thinking.
A few days later we rocked up to the school to meet the principal and Sam’s learning support teacher, to sort out Sam’s re-entry into year eight. The whole experience contrasted with previous school orientations prior to our trip. Sitting in the front office waiting for the meeting, greeting the teachers and chatting about his trip, observing the other children in the playground, waiting while Benison and I discussed some of the practicalities of his return to the school; he was, well, just different. Easier, calmer, more regulated, more of a ‘person’ perhaps.
There were other little snippets of progress. One afternoon after school, I sent him into a local butcher shop to buy some meat for dinner while I stood back and observed. The woman behind the counter was very offhand with him. When we left the shop, he turned to me and said, ‘They weren’t very friendly, were they?’ When someone with autism comments on your lack of social skills, you know you have a problem!
Yet for all that, Sam is still ‘autistic’—still too obsessional and lacking social graces. The thing is, I no longer mind. Benison and I have grown fond of his quirkiness, his oddity, his difference. I never want Sam to be anything or anybody other than Sam, and autism is a central part of his makeup. I don’t hate or resent autism, and I never will.
We still need to wait to see what the Griffith University researchers will find, whether they will observe, in a clinical sense, that the intervention has ‘worked’.
Yet in a wider context, what does it all mean? What does it mean for others? We haven’t found a cure for autism. Sam and I have, however, contributed. We were two foot soldiers in the great unremitting army of science, marching along—sometimes stumbling—but doing our bit. I feel what we have done will, in an unorthodox way, expand understanding of autism in adolescence. There will need to be further study, further exploration of these concepts, but we had made the first tentative start.
Personally, and in a completely unscientific fashion, I believe that his experiences in Africa reduced Sam’s disability in ways that will translate to life in Australia and the developed world. We owe the continent a big whopping thank you.
Africa, oh mother Africa. Sam’s alma mater. It had started in my mind as a mysterious, magical place and finished even more so. Six months on the road and I felt like we had barely scratched the surface of a full understanding of its quirks, its oddities and charms. Endless in scope and depth, it seemed so much more interesting than normal life. Maybe that was just because we were travelling, not working or studying, but I think it was more than that.
As I said to Benison, staring out a bus window in Africa was the best reality TV show you could ever watch. See a bus being pulled out of a ditch by a herd of cattle roped together, a group of Maasai warriors playing bao at a bus stop, people on the sidewalks dancing and clapping in rhythm for no apparent reason.
I was struck by reverse culture shock; I found myself continually stunned at how ‘developed world’ Australia was. Everything worked, everything was clean, everything was efficient, and everyone was just so tense. At Perth airport, I found the terminal too clean; it looked sterile. On leaving, I stepped back in surprise as the automated doors opened on my approach. While crossing the road, a car actually stopped for me as I approached the pedestrian crossing, but the driver frowned in irritation that I’d halted his progress for a few measly seconds. I would miss the smiles, the long handshakes, the ongoing greetings and blessings, the jokes, the back slaps, the laughter and the banter, the bonhomie; just the sheer craziness of the place. I wouldn’t miss the constant anxiety of not knowing what was going on, the gut-wrenching worry about Sam, the pressure of keeping everything going, the roads, the filth, the mosquitoes. Yes, it had been tough all right, but we had come through unscathed, and both Sam and I had been significantly moulded by the experience, and for the better.
Over the first few weeks after our return, some of Sam’s old undesirable habits returned straightaway, but then seemed to evaporate again, as if he’d realised that they were not a necessary part of him anymore. Lying on the floor in a school classroom, letting someone else escort him across a road, passively waiting for the world to come to him rather than actively turning it the other way around: he had left these things behind. He had changed; I really had no doubts now.
I will leave the last hoorah to Sam, who is now, in his parlance, more of a person.
Hi, this is Sam and I’ll tell you about my African trip. The big fact of my African trip is I’ve been to ten countries in six months and I have just ended the trip. The reason that I had to go to Africa is to learn about Africa and lots of other things like talking to people and organising things. I have met a lot of people such as tourists and locals but unfortunately some places only had locals which is not fair. I was very unhappy when the Malawi preschool children try to scare the chicken away. I think this is animal cruelty so the Malawi woman and children are sometimes cruel to animals.
I only had been to McDonald’s two times in the whole African trip. Dad and I have been robbed once in Dar es Salaam which was very nasty. I have seen all of the animals except for gorillas. I have done white-water rafting which was crazy fun and on a helicopter which was cool.
Bad things included getting sick in Uganda (I had to go to the hospital) and scary stuff like bad places like Zimbabwe.
I am now a smart person because I learnt lots of stuff such as the actual noise of the hippopotamus. I’ve used the million number dollar notes in Zimbabwe. We went to the biggest African airport which is in Johannesburg which is in South Africa and it is also the last place of Africa we have seen before going back to Australia. I met lots of people and I am now a famous boy. I am now home at Sydney but we have to go to Perth first then back to Sydney so it took thirty hours to get back to Sydney.
Overall the trip helped me because it taught me life skills. I like this.
Cheers Sam xx
P.S. Next time I might learn some life skills in Japan. Maybe or maybe not.