option, argentina

"Lice. It’s something most kids in the United States get at least once in kindergarten, romping around on the bright-checked, classroom carpet. I remember that I got them once, was treated at home with a special shampoo and combed free of the pests. Here, in my community and in most where our volunteers work, lice or piojos are more common and harder to get rid of. I noticed the kids at my church scratching their beautiful manes of black hair early on, but didn’t pay too much attention to it. I had been warned that I might get lice, but the comment got lost in the barrage of news that I received upon arriving at my placement. So, when I had been scratching my head for a few weeks, I figured it was because of the cheap shampoo I’d been using.

It wasn’t until I went to the pool with a fellow volunteer and the kids from her placement that I became lice-conscious. In order to get in the pool, all the kids had to be checked for lice and then had to wear swimming caps. Christine and I weren’t exempt from this rule. After a day at the pool, sporting some fashionable, black swimming caps, Christine and I went back to her house to shower and change. She offered to search my head for any intruders that may have swam from a kid’s head to mine. After a few minutes of searching, she found them. Not lice, but nits. The eggs that hatch at any minute to become lice. Based on the quantity found on my head, I had been a carrier for at least a few weeks.

I was surprised that I had had creepy, crawling insects on my head for weeks and hadn’t realized it! I was una piojosa—a lice-headed girl! Now, I better understood the title of the popular Argentine punk band, Los Piojos. That name identified them as social outcasts, an identity they embraced.

I, too, embraced my lice. Not literally (I did several intense shampoo treatments and invested in a metal lice comb so I could exile the buggers from my head), but figuratively. In some way, I was proud that I had gotten lice. I thought of all the times I had naively let the kids at church play with my hair, give me pig-tails with their hairbands or rub their little heads against my neck. I thought of the lice as evidence of my immersion in my community.

I have often seen that what separates me from people in the community here are my middle-class upbringing, my education, my loving family, my understanding of the future. But in spite of those differences, my scalp was no different from that of little Samo at church. The lice didn’t discriminate based on our social backgrounds. So, while I am happy to say I am now lice-free, the experience gave me more insight into the reality of Quilmes, Barrio Santo Domingo."

--brooke mcclelland, current YAV to buenos aires, argentina

personal note: i spent a day hanging out w/ brooke when i was studying in buenos aires. she, as well as 3 other YAVS, shared about their experiences so far with the YAV program and the sites they're at in buenos aires, as well as some yerba mate. feelings before hanging out w/ them: i want to be a YAV. feelings after hanging out w/ them: ok now i REALLY want to be a YAV. this is the latest newsletter from brooke... stay tuned for more.