🔅 The TikTok Star Reclaiming Her Body on Camera
Plus, A Disappearing Coast
Good morning from… can you guess where? (Answer at the bottom!)
From Razor-Blade Roses to Rebuilt Bloom: TikTok Star Shamsa Sharawe Reclaims Her Body
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Put down your coffee: we’re about to talk clitoroplasty, hashtags, and one woman who turned trauma into viral teach-ins. Meet Shamsa Sharawe, the 32-year-old Brit-Somali firecracker whose TikTok is followed by millions because of her frank dispatches on female genital cutting (FGC), a practice she endured at six.
Her blunt humor and “trigger warning, folks!” earned her enough crowdfunded cash (€20 k) to hop from her terraced house in northern England to a clinic in Aachen, Germany. There, reconstructive guru Dr Dan O’Dey spent four hours liberating Shamsa’s still-intact clitoral tissue from scar tissue, crafting new labia, and wiring nerve endings for full function. And guess what? She walked through all of these steps with her fans.
The procedure wiped out her daily pain but also drained her wallet – no help from Britain’s NHS, which covers de-infibulation and gender-affirming surgery yet calls FGC reconstruction “unproven.” Shamsa fired back with a petition and a few choice expletives, arguing that tens of thousands of UK survivors deserve the same chance at normalcy.
Back home, she documents recovery milestones – first pain-free sit, first self-exploration – plus Q&A sessions. Her goal is to turn whispered trauma into mainstream conversation, swap shame for belly laughs, and show that reclaiming one’s body can be both radical and wildly relatable.
Afreximbank’s New Pilot: George Elombi Takes the Cockpit as Debt Turbulence Looms
Africa’s trade-finance workhorse just handed the controls to one of its longest-serving crew members. George Elombi, a Cameroonian lawyer who’s been at Afreximbank since dial-up internet, will replace outgoing president Benedict Oramah in September.
His in-tray is already overflowing: Zambia and Ghana want the Cairo-based lender to join their debt-restructuring party, while Afreximbank insists its “preferred-creditor” badge means no haircut, no compromise.
Fitch isn’t convinced: The US-based agency downgraded the bank’s rating to BBB- last week, warning it could take losses if restructurings press ahead. Afreximbank calls that an “erroneous view” and says it isn’t even at the negotiating table. Elombi’s response? Keep the money taps open: the bank pushed $17.5 billion in trade finance across the continent last year and vows to hit $40 billion by 2026, all while defending its credit halo.
Translation: new captain, same flight plan… industrialise Africa, dodge rating downgrades, and pray the seat-belt sign stays off while Zambia and Ghana sort out their tabs.
Ghana’s Disappearing Coast: Where the Past Gets Washed Away
Once a holding cell for thousands of enslaved Africans, Ghana’s Fort Prinzenstein now holds something else entirely: a ticking clock. Just 10% of the 18th-century slave fort remains, and what’s left is being slowly eaten by the sea.
Once four miles inland, the fort now teeters at the edge of the Gulf of Guinea, battered by tidal waves, rising sea levels, and decades of state-level shrugging. What used to be a historic monument is turning into a soggy memory.
Caretaker James Akorli has watched his childhood village disappear, the coastline move steadily inward, and the fort’s male dungeons get swallowed whole. “We are losing everything — our history, our homes, our livelihoods,” he says. And he means that quite literally.
Coastal erosion and climate change are wreaking havoc on Ghana’s 550km shore. But experts say it’s not just Mother Nature’s fault, it’s also poor planning. Sea walls save one town and doom the next. Sand mining, river damming, and unregulated construction keep stripping the coast of its natural defences. Meanwhile, Ghana’s $100 million coastal protection project is looking more like a band-aid on a broken dam.
You can read more on this here, including why the destruction isn’t just historical but economic too.
Food for Thought
“The mouth talks plenty which the heart does not say.”
— Ghana Proverb
And the Answer is…
The photo is from Djibouti. You can also send in your own photos, alongside the location, and we’ll do our best to feature them.