A Namibian friend asked me the other day if white women give birth the 'natural way'. Assuming she was talking about epidurals, I said no, many women today take some kind of pain relief during labour.

"No, no," she said, "I mean, do they give birth through the legs?" (accompanied by a pointing motion to the groin area)

I couldn't stop laughing when she said this, I was so completely dumbfounded by the question! I asked her how she thought babies came out of white women. She said she thought they were all cut out of the womb.

After explaining that this procedure is only used on some women in certain cases, I learned that here in rural northern Namibia, Caesarean sections are extremely rare. My friend didn't know anyone who had ever had one. I can't image how women suffer here if they have a problem during delivery. My roommate, who works at the local hospital, told me that directly after giving birth, women are expected to get out of bed themselves and just walk out! Women from the villages camp outside the hospital when they are pregnant, sometimes for weeks at a time, until they are ready to deliver. Women in town generally work up until the week before they are due.

My friend also told me that another colleague had said that white women do not breast feed their babies. She said that they had been watching television when a picture of Angelina Jolie came on the screen. They decided that based on the size of her breasts she couldn't have been breast feeding!

Ah, so these are the perceptions of white women that Angelina Jolie has created here in Namibia.