His story began in 1985 when NRA soldiers discovered him
in the forest, with his adoptive family – a pack of monkeys. A replica of the
fairy tale, The Jungle Book, Robert Mayanja has since been rehabilitated among
humans, but still has tendencies of the animal he was raised to be.
He strains his legs as he walks, with his mouth full of
grass. His tongue hangs out as he constantly moves from place to place, looking
for privacy. He is short with small feet. It is his wrinkled mature face that
shows his estimated age.
As I stretch my hand to greet him, he forcefully reaches
for me; with wild gestures and moves that make me freeze in utter shock, before
instinctively jumping away. But that does not deter Mayanja from following me.
“Do not run, he just wants to hug you. It is his way of
greeting and showing love to people. Robert greets with the language he knows
best, which is a powerful hug,” Monica Angeyo, the director of L’Arche, where
Mayanja lives, explains.
L’Arche is an NGO in Busega, Kampala, which took on the
boy who was rescued from the jungle over 20 years ago. It offers physiotherapy
and occupational therapy to mentally handicapped children and young adults.
Monkey boy
Mayanja was raised by monkeys until he was six years old.
His story dates back to the early 1980s, during the civil unrest at that time.
Except for his birthplace, known to be Luwero, nothing more is known about
Mayanja’s birthday, parents and early childhood.
The only available history starts when soldiers of the
National Resistance Army found him in a forest in 1985, with a pack of monkeys.
It is believed that his parents were killed in 1982
during the war and the boy was abandoned in the forest. He was believed to be
about three years old when he was left alone and lived in the wild for another
three years.
As the soldiers roamed about the bushes, they spotted
what looked unmistakably like a human being among the monkeys. They had to disperse
the monkeys in order to rescue the boy, but it was a struggle because the
monkeys put up a fight.
One adult female monkey held Mayanja tightly to her bosom
in an attempt to protect him.
Angeyo says according to reports from those who rescued
him, while in the wild, Mayanja survived on fruits, berries and roots and
learnt all the mannerisms of the monkeys that adopted him.
When he was found, he could not sit or stand, but only
squat and jump. He neither smiled nor talked, but made jungle noises, which
quickly got him a new name — Monkey Boy.
In the beginning, it was a struggle to take him through
the bathroom procedure, but now it is his favourite activity. Though he cannot
dress himself, he voluntarily lifts his legs in turn to wear trousers and
stretches out his hands for the shirt.
He does not know where to keep his clothes, though.
Still learning
Mayanja joined L’Arche community on July 5, 1991. He was
about 12 years old. Since the date of his birth was uncertain, L’Arche
Community created one for him, which is July 5.
His birthday is celebrated every year and Mayanja
probably knows it as the day he gets to wear nice clothes.
Doctors described Mayanja as an autistic child; living in
his own world. At the time he was rescued, he had a dull personality and would
not respond easily to human beings. He would swallow food very fast without
chewing.
“Mayanja has learnt rudimentary life skills like toilet
manners. He knows when it is time for toilet and does not soil himself. He
walks to the toilet door and waits for someone to help him,” Angeyo says.
He likes sunbathing and staying in isolation and
sometimes makes monkey-like sounds. Mayanja wakes up in the morning and looks
for a comfortable spot on the ground, folds his arms and legs and lies on the
ground to enjoy the sun.
Sometimes, he picks grass and puts in his mouth. When he
walks, his posture is the slight hunch of an ape. Mayanja sees well, but hardly
notices the other children around him, and on a bad day, he walks over them if
they are in his way with no smile at all.
He is now accustomed to the routine of the community.
Wake up time is 6:00am. He jumps out of bed then stops, goes to the toilet and
then the bathroom, where he waits for the care assistant to bathe him since he
cannot bathe himself.
“After bathing, Mayanja sits in the dining room waiting
for breakfast and if it is delayed, he moves to the kitchen to make his
presence known, before going back to the dining table.
Initially, he could not sit on the chair and had to be
tied to it during meals but now he comfortably sits down and waits to be
served,” Angeyo relates. Among other things, he has learnt how to chew as he
eats as pictured below left. Initially, he would swallow food without chewing
it.
“Robert is emotional and gets excited when he hears the
sound of drums and shakes his head. He makes sounds to indicate feelings of
pain, hunger or happiness. He cries when he is hurt and dances when he is
happy, since he does not talk,” Angeyo explains.
Robert is now estimated to be aged 33. He is free to walk
around the compound and lies down wherever he wants to. He does not do daily
tasks like everyone else.
He is sometimes assigned to the farm, but hardly digs or
does any cleaning, not because he is stubborn, but because his limbs are weak.
Instead, he lies on the dirty floor near the livestock,
makes his clothes dirty, and then leaves them there to be washed.
“Because of his mental disability, he still has to learn
about his environment. He needs love and care from us because sometimes we act
as his eyes and hands,” Angeyo says, adding that he is loved as a member of the
community.
The future
Angeyo says Mayanja has a long way to go; he still needs
a lot of help from the physiotherapist and occupational therapist.
“We have had many people come here to get Mayanja’s
information with promises that they are getting for him doctors to help, but
none of them comes back,” Angeyo says, adding that even those who brought Mayanja
to the centre have long stopped being concerned about his welfare.
Help for special needs The L’Arche community in Uganda
started in 1991 and supports 19 people with learning disabilities and a further
20 disabled people are welcomed in the day provision service.
Those with special needs are equipped with vocational or
technical skills like carpentry and playing music instruments, which have
boosted their self-esteem and potential to earn a living.
Most of the children and young adults at the centre are
orphaned or abandoned because of the stigma. Angeyo says they could do with
financial support from the Government.
The community derives all of its local income from gifts,
rental income, fees and sales of goods made in the workshops. The rest comes
from charitable donations from overseas.
“We try to do our own simple projects like farming. We
rear pigs, grow bananas, sugarcane and beans, but they are stolen by unknown
people, yet we do not have enough money to hire a watchman.
“I wonder what kind of person endeavours to come and
steal what mentally challenged people have, instead of helping them,” Angeyo
laments.
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