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Miracle boy of Olympics raised by apes 

 From:The Irish Independent

Sunday, 22nd June, 2003 

 

 

ROSEMARY HANNAN

 

HE witnessed his father murdering his mother . . . fled in terror to the jungle . . . was raised by the animals . . . and was saved to eventually represent his country.

 

All children are special. Even more so are the 7,000 athletes taking part in the Special Olympics which opened in Dublin last night.

 

But one of them stands out from the rest. Because his story is truly extraordinary.

 

Eighteen-year-old John Ssaybunnya is a fit, bright charismatic young man - if a bit small for his age - who plays football with the Ugandan team. To talk to him in his Roscommon base, you would never guess at the harrowing trauma he survived. At the age of three, he witnessed his mother being murdered - some accounts say she died at the hands of his father, who has since died, either in one of the many bloodbaths in that strife-torn country, or by his own hand. Both versions were reported.

 

Traumatised by the horror of what he had seen, he fled into the jungle. And there he should have died, but he didn't.

 

He survived because he was adopted by a troupe of African Green monkeys who fed him and raised him as their own.

 

Three years later, in 1991, a tribeswoman saw him scavenging for food with the monkeys and reported it to the people of her village.

 

When the villagers found the boy and attempted to take him away he climbed up a tree to hide and hurled down sticks. His monkey guardians put up a ferocious fight, believing that the humans were trying take away one of their own. They had shared their food and in some way nurtured him, and they weren't going to let him go easily. John, for his part, had learned the mannerisms of his jungle guardians, became adept at climbing trees and lived on a diet of nuts, berries and leaves for the whole of the three years he had been missing.

 

Back in the village, the terrified six-year-old found himself again cast into an alien environment. But once again he had an amazing stroke of luck. Instead of becoming the village idiot, he was placed in the Kamuzinda Christian Orphanage run by the Paul and Molly Foundation, 100 miles from the capital, Kampala.

 

Native Ugandans Paul and Molly Wasswa, who have six biological children, umpteen fostered and adopted youngsters and who run a charitable foundation incorporating schools for 1,500 orphans, were not fazed by this new addition to their family. "He was just another child with a child's needs," said Paul.

 

He was also, however, a child covered with sores, scabs and his teeth were brown and broken. He had a tendency to scratch and bite when you came near him. He walked like a monkey, couldn't talk and threw his food around. Even today, he has an empathy with monkeys and is very protective of them.

 

"All the other children were scared of him at first," laughs Paul. Yet today, although undoubtedly mentally disadvantaged, John is a happy-go-lucky young athlete, who can read, write, sing and hold his own socially and on the football pitch.

 

So well does he sing, in fact, that in 1999 he was chosen as a member of the 20-strong Pearl of Africa Choir which toured Britain for three weeks. So how did this come about? Well, according to Paul this is merely another example of what love can do. Listening to him, you really believe that here is a man capable of looking at the sore-ridden feral boy and seeing only the frightened child.

 

"Surely everyone should be kind to other people and particularly children," he says, shrugging off any of our western-style accolades.

 

Throughout the centuries there have always been tales of feral children which have grasped our imagination and fascinated us. From Romulus and Remus to Tarzan and Jane, and Mowgli of The Jungle Book, stories have abounded about children reared by animals.

 

But John's story is unique in that Professor Douglas Candland, who is an animal behaviourist and a leading expert in feral children, has acknowledged that, for the first time, this is a tale that scientists cannot dismiss. At one stage, the BBC, which filmed a documentary on John's life, staged a test using the eminent primatologist Debbie Cox. John was placed with other children close to a group of African Green monkeys. All the other children started harassing the monkeys by yelling, squeaking and throwing pebbles. John's attitude was completely different. Staying crouched and reaching an open hand towards the monkeys, he started a complicated routine of oblique glances and guttural but somehow harmonious sounds.

 

In less than two hours, John had been completely accepted by the simians and was happily interacting with them, compelling the experts to declare that he had certainly spent at least two years living among monkeys in the jungle.

 

Meeting John in Roscommon now, it is hard to reconcile this image with the young, smiling footballer proud to represent his country.

 

He doesn't need your pity. He doesn't want to be patronised. He wants to represent his country to the best of his ability. Nothing more. Nothing less. His extraordinary past is far behind him. Now he is just an ordinary hero.