I first met Samantha just after she had been suspended from school for the third time, for being rude and belligerent towards the teachers. She was 13 years old, average in height and weight, above average in intelligence, and, according to the referral information, superior in her ability to provoke adults into reacting negatively to her. Apparently her tactic was to act aggressively toward people as soon as she met them, causing them to back away from her in order to avoid conflict or hurt to themselves. If adults pushed to make a connection with her, she pushed back even harder-with insults, offensive language, and threats. Invariably this resulted in a situation in which Samantha ended up in trouble, and the adult called in the professionals for help. This time they had called me, a school-based Child and Youth Care worker.
Her parents were separated, and she was an only child living with her mother. She had begun to develop this behaviour around the time that her father had abruptly left the family and took off for Brazil with an archaeology student three years earlier. Her mother worked as a nurse in intensive care and was frequently absent during the nights. On those occasions, Samantha would sleep over at the home of her maternal grandmother. Her grandfather was an unknown quantity, since he had left before Samantha was born. Her paternal grandparents were not involved in her life at all. Apparently they lived in a different country.
With her mother and grandmother, Samantha reportedly demonstrated none of her aggressive interpersonal behaviours. It was only with other adults that this was a problem. According to the reports, she didn't discriminate by gender, treating both men and women the same. How she was with her peers was unclear but there had been no reported incidents from either the school or the community. She didn't seem to have friends, but she didn't seem to have enemies, either.
She had been told to expect me and was waiting on a swing in the schoolyard when I arrived. As I walked across the yard to her, I wondered about how to introduce myself and how to connect with someone who obviously didn't relish relationships with adults. I also noticed how, by choosing to sit on the swings on the other side of the yard, she really had me coming to her. I approached to about ten feet away and stopped to watch her. She was swinging slowly, face pointing to the ground. Limp, light-coloured hair hanging down framing her face, she was watching me out of the top of her eyes. I chose not to speak. After a minute or two she opened the exchange.
"So you're the fat man who's going to fix me for the stupid teachers." Well, she was right, I was overweight.
"Not if you don't want me to," I responded. She didn't respond, just kept on swaying gently, so I continued. "1 remember sitting on the swings when I was about your age. I used to skip out of class and daydream about running away from home. But then I would think about how much my mother needed me."
"I really don't care about your life," she responded. "If you're going to tell me stories, at least make them interesting. Come on. Tell me something interesting, fat man."
I thought that I might as well try.
Response
"Okay," I said. "Let me tell you
this one. It's not about school or anything, so maybe it's a place to
start." She looked back up from the ground but didn't say
anything, so I went ahead.
"1 went to Africa once-to look for animals. Not hunting, just to see them, maybe take some pictures. I'd always been interested in free animals and I wanted to see them from close up. So, I went to one of those junglesafari things where a guide takes you out to see the animals in their natural environment. It was very organized, and it seemed like a safe way to do it. And I wanted to be safe. I had no desire to be out in the jungle alone because I knew that I could make a mistake – and if I did that I could end up in difficulty. I'd been in situations before where I didn't know what to do, and things didn't always work out the way I would have liked. So I figured it was better to have a guide.
"After we had been there for about three days, we still hadn't seen a lion, which was something I really wanted. I was disappointed because we didn't have much time left – we were only on this safari for five days. So, I told the guide how much I wished that I could see a lion.
"Once the guide knew how important this was for me, he kept in touch with some other guides, hoping that one of them would come across a lion that we could go and see. On the fifth day, he got a call on his two-way radio saying that there was a lioness feeding in a field only a few miles away. We jumped in a jeep and rushed over.
"When we got there we found a couple of other guides he knew standing on the edge of a large field. The lioness was nowhere to be seen. The other guides said that she was in the bush on the other side of the field. They also said that we shouldn't cross the field because it was dangerous. The lioness had captured and killed another animal and was busy feeding. If we approached across the field, they said, the lioness would see it as a threat to her own safety and might attack us.
"Our guide discussed it with us, and we decided that we would cross the field very slowly. He told us that the lioness probably thought that the distance across the field provided her with some security. As we crossed it, she would feel less and less safe. At some point, he said, the lioness would begin to feel threatened and would let us know. That's why we had to approach slowly – to give her time to warn us. If we went too quickly she wouldn't warn us, she would just attack. I was glad that he knew something about how to approach a dangerous situation. I felt safer, even if I was scared.
"He would carry a rifle, for protection in case the lioness did attack us. He said that he believed that you should always be able to protect yourself but you should only use that protection when it was absolutely necessary. And he believed that you should be careful and try to avoid using your protection. He said that if he ended up hurting the lioness just to satisfy our curiosity, he would feel terrible.
"So, we were to approach slowly and pay attention to him. He would pay attention to the lioness and try to read her signals. If she looked too threatened or too dangerous, we would back away from her slowly and hope that she would just let us walk away. It was his job, he said, to try to understand what the lioness was thinking of doing and to get us out of there safely.
"Well, we walked slowly across the field, keeping our eyes on the spot where the lioness was hidden. When we were about half way across the field the lioness showed herself. She stuck part of her face through the bushes and just looked at us. Even from that distance, I could see her eyes looking out from beneath all that hair. They were strong and clear and powerful – not threatening, just cold and warning and waiting. You could see that she wasn't missing a thing. She was ready to protect herself.
"We all stopped dead in our tracks. I remember thinking to myself, 'Maybe I've made a mistake by coming here.' I looked over to the guide to see what to do. I don't know how I did it, but I swear that somehow I kept my eyes on the lioness even while I was turning my head to look at the guide.
"The guide encouraged us to move slowly forward. 'But only a few steps at a time. We're right on the edge of the safety zone,' he cautioned. With our second step, the lioness stuck her whole head out of the bushes and roared.
"Her roar was so strong, it was like thunder on a dark night. It came across that field like something physical. It didn't carry across the field like any other sound; it rolled across it like a freight train and it didn't stop until I heard it deep inside of me. It was like I was hearing it from the inside out, as if her warning was coming from deep inside of me, not from outside. I froze solid. I wanted to run. I wanted someone to swoop down and take me away from this situation. I wanted to know what to do. I wanted to be someplace else. But the guide had warned us that if we ran, the lioness might take it as a sign that she was right about us being a threat to her and would likely charge across the field to attack us.
"1 remember standing there as if I were face to face with her even though she was on the other side of the field. I was so focused on her that it was like she was only ten feet from me, but I knew that she was much farther away than that. I remembered that the guide had said that if she decided to attack us, she could cross that field before we even had time to finish turning around to run. I heard the guide's voice quietly telling us to walk backwards slowly and to keep our eyes on the lioness. He said that she would interpret this as a sign of respect and, hopefully, let us walk away.
"And that's what we did. We moved away one step at a time. As we backed carefully across the field, the lioness slid slowly back into the bush. When she had finally slid out of sight again, we turned and walked back to the other edge of the field, looking occasionally over our shoulders.
"When we got back to the jeep we all relaxed a little. As we calmed down, we talked about whether or not it had been fair for us to approach the lioness so directly. After all, by our going toward her like we did, she had felt the need to defend herself. Either the lioness, or any of us, could have ended up getting hurt because of our curiosity.
"Before we left, the guide talked about how upset he was with himself for putting us, and the lioness, in that predicament. He wondered if he had made a mistake in judgement because he had cared about what we wanted, rather than paying attention to what he knew about lions.
“But, he concluded, 'she'll remember us, because a lioness remembers everything. And if we come back again on another day, she may remember that we were respectful and paid attention when she warned us that we had come close enough. Then again, she may not. It really depends on how she remembers this experience and what it means to her. But she will always be on guard, because in the jungle safety is more important than anything else.' Then we got in the jeep and left. I've never forgotten that experience."
When I finished the story, I was about fifteen feet away from Samantha.
She had pushed her hair behind one ear and was looking at me. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, and she didn't say anything.
"Look," I said, "1 only wanted to come and meet you today. I'll come back tomorrow. Maybe then you can tell me a story."
I took a few steps back as I spoke, smiled at her, and turned to walk back across the field to the parking lot. As I walked away she spoke. "Watch your back, fat man."
Garfat, Thom. (1994). Journal of Child and Youth Care, Vol. 9, No. 2. oo133-136.
