«Every person should visit a city like Rome at least once in their life. My father gave me good advice about that.» An passionate traveler and monument collector—though his definition of "monument" took on a highly personal character, one we'd come to understand later—Samuèl Lopez Ruiz landed in Rome on May 9th. His arrival had been announced months earlier: a well-connected friend named Angela Grassi had met Samuel's father through a mutual contact between Fe y Luz and the autism group within the Down syndrome association that Samuèl attends in Santander («in Cantabria,» he insists).
On the milder end of the autism spectrum, Samuèl was planning to spend a month in the Eternal City that late spring, just as he had done in Paris the year before. «He's 28, he hates Madrid, and he loves to travel,» Angela had explained to us. «His father lives in Madrid and can't always go with him. He doesn't speak Italian, but he's learning it online. Can you find him a suitable place to stay?»
Weeks later, when it had become clear that finding housing in Rome would be difficult, the right person solved the problem. Mario Ferrini, a Milanese board member of Faith and Light who happened to be in Rome for a council meeting, knew Father David—an old spiritual director of his Gratosoglio community who had returned to the Roman headquarters of his Mexican missionary order, right in the historic center. One phone call to the house superiors, and Samuèl had a bed—and the right language spoken around him. Two weeks later, he arrived with his father Antonio, who said goodbye after two days.
Simply «visiting» a city isn't enough for Samuèl: he insists on being able to «contribute to society and work»
Samuèl, who had in fact reached a surprising level of Italian, knew exactly how he wanted to spend his month as a tourist. «Rome is known for being a very important city in ancient times, and I can learn history and how people lived in the past, when Julius Caesar was alive. It means visiting the history of humanity.» But «visiting» alone wasn't enough: Samuèl was determined to «contribute to society and work.» So we arranged for him to help out at the Faith and Light office, and at the monastery he assisted with setting and clearing tables.
At the office on Viale di Valle Aurelia, he learned to scan photographs for the digitization of the paper archive—work that seemed unexciting at first, but which he could put on his résumé. By month's end, Samuèl, meticulously careful about tallying everything he saw and did, could declare with great satisfaction that he had «scanned 670 photographs and old publications»—a number well above the 550 monuments he'd logged in his travel notebook. A notebook in which, beyond the many sites in the historic center, he recorded every work of art, natural landmark, or social site of interest he observed from the outside only («too expensive to go inside, and I don't want to burden my budget further»). Among them: the Elmi factory in Ostia and the tourist harbor «colored amarillo» (yellow); the Valle Aurelia metro station with its ancient kiln; Villa Borghese; and Castel Porziano. A trip to the beach finally settled a question that had consumed an entire afternoon—how many beaches does Rome have?—one that he'd debated passionately with a woman at a bus stop and then, once aboard the 46, with a priest friend he'd met by chance, whom he engaged in French. The 46 was an experiment: a new route back from the office to the monastery. It failed the test. «I prefer the metro, even if it takes longer,» he decided.
Moving around the city didn't worry him: from Ostia (with its «hostile bridge»—the pier extending into the sea) he took a notorious Trenomare train to Piramide. He navigates without a phone, which «makes me anxious.» As we watched him depart from the platform, we were the ones who fretted. We texted the monastery to find out when he'd arrived. He claims he's not «very good at rrrelating» to people, but he was helpful and considerate in every moment we spent together. At the two Faith and Light meetings he attended—despite initial reservations—he showed remarkable human qualities. It's a shame he doesn't always recognize them in himself.
May passed, and at the end of it our new polyglot friend, a somewhat awkward gentleman, was ready to share his final assessment of the city. «Rome has beautiful weather all year round. In winter it rains enough. In summer it will be a bit hot, but it seems bearable. There are very beautiful beaches. We can say Rome has everything to visit... it was a very interesting experience for my life as a person. And unlike Madrid, people are very helpful here.» Samuèl is back in Santander now. He refused to appear in a video where he could tell his story himself—«I don't like it if I become famous.» We won't be going to Madrid with him («People there treated me wrong when I was younger, and I hate it!»), but we already have a Plan B: «Salamanca, Saragoza, Seville, Barcelona»—the most beautiful Spanish cities to visit, according to Samuèl.