Email: Emily Wilson

Friends,

Two 17-year-old boys sit next to each other on bar stools at “The Base,” a drop-in center, their feet propped up on the table in front of them. Ryan is round-faced and dark-haired and personable; he works at the Subway across the street, and I don't think he has missed one drop-in since I've been here. Damian is thinner than Ryan—he sports a partially bleached faux hawk, a pierced eyebrow, and a contagious smile. Knees bent, their legs parallel, their pant legs pulled up to the middle of their respective thighs, they look at the table in front of them, unsuccessfully trying to mask their unease.

“Right,” says Ryan, “whose fecking idea was this?”

It could have been his, or it could have been Damian’s, but never mind: it is too late for either of them to turn back. Ryan’s best friend Beth stands in front of him, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and her bangs falling in her eyes as she sets herself to the task at hand. She is a member of the Presbyterian church where I am working; he, Ryan, was introduced to me as one of the most Irish people I would ever meet.

Damian is new to The Base, so I don't know much about him yet, but I do know that I respect him for what he is about to do.

Ryan starts to make apprehensive noises as Beth picks up the jar in front of her. “Ach, don’t be such a girl,” she tells him. With a curved wooden stick, she expertly begins to smooth wax onto Ryan's shin in the direction of the hair growth, as the instructions explicitly state. Damian watches, straight-faced but clutching the edge of his seat. Beth lays a strip of cloth onto Ryan's leg as John Blair (area coordinator) moves into position with his video camera.

“Ready?” John asks. Beth is focused, serious; Ryan bites the collar of his shirt, his round eyes watching Beth’s fingers intently as they grip the bottom edge of the cloth; Damian, unable to even look, crosses his arms in front of his face so that they obscure his view. The onlookers count down from three, and immediately after “one,” Beth tears the strip from Ryan's leg, leaving a barren rectangle in the middle of his hairy shin.

“Pudsey!” Ryan shouts, his eyes watering, his face frozen in a grimace. Everyone laughs but Beth—she is already smoothing wax onto his leg for the next strip.

Ryan and Damian are not just incredibly masochistic teenagers. Rather, they have been sponsored by people in the Lambeg area to wax their legs in order to raise money for a charity called Children in Need, and Pudsey the teddy bear is the mascot for this charity—hence Ryan’s self-edited cry of distress. The British Broadcasting Company's Children in Need charity raises money every year to support disadvantaged children in the United Kingdom—this includes children who may have experienced mental, physical, or sensory disabilities; have behavioral or psychological disorders; are living in poverty or situations of deprivation; or are suffering through distress, abuse or neglect. Once a year, the BBC hosts an appeal show that's televised across the United Kingdom, which serves to remind people about the charity and, as a result, create a lot more revenue.

It took me a day or two to understand that these young people at The Base aren’t being rewarded for their efforts. It’s not as though the person who raises the most money gets a prize. Rather, these boys—these 17-year-old boys who aren’t exactly disadvantaged, but who are at least somewhat affected by the economic recession—are going this far to raise money to help other people just because they know they should.

Even Ali, an unpaid volunteer at The Base, got in on the action. The young people who were present offered him £35 in order to have a square of his head waxed. “As long as I can do the waxing,” said one boy. “I can't say no to that,” I overheard Ali say to another volunteer. “It’s for charity.”

Afterwards, Ali didn't speak for the rest of the evening. Instead, he stood behind the counter at the snack shop, using a refrigerated can of Coke to sooth his burning scalp.

Ryan yelps as Beth tears another strip from his ankle, pieces of wax still clinging to his leg hair.

“I hate you,” he tells her, but it is the pain talking.

“He thinks this is bad,” Beth says to no one in particular, “wait until I get to his thighs.”

“Pudsey,” Ryan says, and Damian’s eyes widen as a girl named Anya starts to spread wax onto his leg.

Just another Wednesday night at the drop-in.

Emily Wilson,
Northern Ireland