Dispelling the myths

Weather - Maximum temperature 42 degrees Celsius

- Weekly rainfall 4mm

Highlight of the week

Bouncing baby impalas are everywhere.

Lowlight of the week

Bees have moved into our swimming lido. We’ve moved out.

My childhood memories are mainly happy ones. I grew up with freedoms unknown to children in the developed world today. I explored. I played outdoors. My friends and I gathered in the corners of the playground to whisper secrets. We talked about our body development. We shared our fears for the changes that we might expect in puberty. There was no internet. No immediate answer to our questions. No Professor Google for us.

I used to buy Patches magazine every week. Other girlfriends brought Jackie. We would turn delightedly to the problem page. This is where all the answers would be. We read the problems out aloud. Giggling at the audacity of the young people asking the questions. It had never occurred to me that these questions might be written by adults rather than asked by my peers. Topical questions. The answers were a fundamental part of our education. The answers helped to dispel unhelpful myths. My Roman Catholic school curriculum neither had the balls, nor the ovaries, to provide answers to our burning questions. Teachers. Siblings. Parents. Doctors. No one else would answer these thorny questions. Taboo. We were surrounded by embarrassed silence.

Like it or not, things have changed in the developed world. A child in the UK gets what she wants, when she wants. Her questions are instantly answered. She can type the question into Google and choose her answer. Social media will even predict what she wants to know, rather like the editors of Patches or Jackie. Nothing is censored. Nothing appears to be taboo. Tim Berners-Lee is a modern-day version of Pandora. The box is open. The web also tell us how to look naked.

My favourite clinic before retirement was a joint adolescent gynaecology clinic with my mate Suzie. A paediatrician and a gynaecologist in the same room. Two for the price of one. The clinic was always fully booked. We were the closest thing that the NHS will ever get to agony aunts. The girls loved the clinic. Parents loved the clinic. Suzie and I loved the clinic. It was a real eye opener for everyone.

Our new service seemed to hit the spot. Informed girls and mums wanted better medical care from informed clinicians. We gave them patient centred care. Girls with an increased awareness of their bodies and better education about how everything works wanted more out of life. They know that it is possible to prevent teenage pregnancy. We took them through the choices and gave them what they needed safely. They knew not to put up with heavy or irregular periods and abdominal pain. We put that right for them. They were even switched on about fertility. We made sure that their internet searches were quality controlled. But has the pendulum swung too far? Have their expectations been raised too high?

I want smaller labia. Alice demanded. At Alice’s age I had no idea what labia were. Nine years old and she wants cosmetic surgery. Images heavily doctored by surgery and photoshop had skewed Alice’s perception of normality. Social media has driven a demand for a new normal. We had so many little Alice’s referred to our clinic that we closed the doors to requests for labial surgery. We were not about to offer female genital mutilation.

But what is it like to be a young girl growing up in the South Luangwa valley? For better or for worse, the internet is not readily accessible to young people here. Smart phones are beyond most peoples’ budgets. The internet signal is patchy and unreliable. Social media is catching on with some older Zambians. But the youth of the Valley remain off - line. There is no access to teenager magazines. Education is patchy. The children may be in school, but their parents are often illiterate. Many health beliefs are passed down through families. Myths are perpetuated and rarely challenged. Throughout the world myths exist and persist. But what if those beliefs are so far off the scale of right and wrong. How can a young person in the Valley sort out the facts from myths? Who will help a young girl know what is an alternative fact and what is fake and harmful?

We were invited to take part in an education session for teenage girls by Project Luangwa. Project Luangwa is a local organisation whose strapline is Community empowerment through tourism. They sponsor children through school. They provide gender support. They help to level the playing field. There are programmes for vocational training and small business development. They have achieved great success in South Luangwa. They have provided washable sanitary wear for girls. This means that girls can access school all year round and they do not miss school at times of menstruation.

Project Luangwa have set up youth clubs. Clubs to enable young people to feel comfortable in their own skin. Clubs to educate and enable. It was to one such club that we were invited. Would you come and facilitate a session at the club for girls who want to ask some medical questions? You bet. We answered, without pausing for reflection. It sounded important and possibly fun. Will we need to do any homework? We ask Fwilane, the organiser. Oh no. She replied. The questions will be very straightforward for you.

So, last Thursday afternoon we set off to town to pick up Fwilane and her understudy, Martha. We drove for 10 minutes through town. Then down a dirt track to the pristine youth club. We arrived to a cacophony. Voices on top of voices. Twenty-five teenage girls free to express themselves. Laughter. Talking. Screeching. Some girls sat studiously writing out their questions. They had all been asked to do some homework. Their questions in best English folded in quarters. Then placed in a box for us to pick out at random. Anonymous but deeply personal questions. Nobody was to know who asked which question.

An icebreaker first. Typical African style: Clapping. Swaying. Chanting words ending in tion. Laughter galore. The girls were full of imagination. Their voices enchanting. Then each girl introduced herself. Each girl told us which part of their body they loved. The whole body was covered from head to toe with all the bits in between. Cue more laughter.

It was now time get down to business. Time for the nitty gritty. The questions might have come out of the minds of the editors of Patches or Jackie. Expect straightforward questions Fwilane had suggested. There were plenty of straightforward questions. Is it normal to feel very hungry before your period? Why are periods painful? Why are periods not regular? What causes headaches? Can I get pregnant if I have sex during my period? Should I shave my pubic hair? What is an allergy? And then we were hit with a curveball: What should I do to control my sexual urges?

Gulp.

I kept a straight face. Like a consummate politician I evaded the question neatly. It’s really important that you are safe in a sexual relationship. Don’t have sex until you are really happy that you are with the right partner, who will treat you with respect. And only have sex when it feels right to you. You should always be able to say no. Insist on your partner wearing a condom. Protect yourself from sexually transmissible infections including HIV, and pregnancy. I was not about to talk about masturbation in this setting. Our understanding of the local taboos doesn’t stretch that far.

Over an hour was spent at the club. Burning questions asked and answered. Myths dispelled. Fake facts flattened. I majored in hormones and girls’ bits. Keith picked up the leftovers. Follow up questions were invited after each offering. Initially this invite was met by silence. Twenty-five faces looking keenly at us. We spoke slowly as English is not their first language. At times, Fwilane translated into Nyanja, if she felt the explanation was a bit complicated. As time wore on, everyone relaxed. Hands started to shoot up. The follow up questions took on a life of their own. The girls forgot about our box of questions. The club became a shyness free zone.

One girl asked why she got sore every time she shaved her private parts. Africans unfortunately tend to react badly to shaving. Ingrown hairs trigger irritation mostly because of hair shape. Tight curls cause the hairs to grow into the skin. The vogue for hairlessness has reached everywhere. I struck a blow for personal freedom: There is no reason to shave your private parts, not unless you really want to. Hair down there actually helps with your body hygiene.

We never got to the bottom of the box. Not even at the re-run two weeks later. Burning questions were asked. Agonies were answered by the two Valley doctors turned agony aunts. Gladly the Middlesbrough penchant for the perfect labia has not reached Kakumbi yet.

A little bit of educaTION

Girls club with honorary extra

Another one bites the dust

Glorious mud

Searching for bees - the carmine bee eater