Last month I told you that this column would feature people with a Montpelier connection who are now “far from home.” This month we travel all the way to Cameroon in Africa for our visit with Charmayne Cooley.
Charmayne is a 2002 graduate of Montpelier High School, and is the daughter of Larry and Christy Cooley of rural Montpelier. Her journey from Montpelier to Africa took her through Gambier, Ohio, where she graduated from Kenyon College with a degree in American Studies. She stayed in Gambier, working by day as a higher education administrator in the school’s admission office, and working nights as a certified paramedic and firefighter.
While that may sound like an interesting start to life for most people, Charmayne looked for something more.
“Despite loving my job and my friends, I still didn’t feel personally fulfilled,” she explained. “In an attempt to ‘force my own hand,’ I resigned during the summer of 2009. I knew that the future had something else in store for me, and I needed to explore what that was. At the age of 25, I felt at a crossroads in my life – too old to be young and too young to be old.”
A trip home to the family farm in Montpelier led her to a box which contained an old Peace Corps catalog she had picked up during her college years. Things moved rapidly from that point, and in the summer of 2010 she learned she had been assigned to be a community health educator in Cameroon for the next 27 months.
“My group of community health and agroforestry volunteers arrived in-country in September and began 11 weeks of training together while living with host families. Our training included French language immersion, technical classes, as well as general medical/safety lessons and discussions on the cultural context,” she noted. On December 1 she was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer in front of the country director and the U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon.
“Cameroon is an incredibly diverse place, often called ‘Africa in Miniature.’ For a country the size of California, the variety is immense,” Charmayne explained. “The geography ranges from Sahel desert to lush forest, religion is divided between Muslim and Christian, and each region boasts its own traditional custom, dances, and foods. I have been assigned to Bapa, a small village in the mountainous western region. This area is francophone (French speaking), but Cameroon has approximately 250 languages.”
In her duties as a community health educator, Charmayne works to sensitive people on major health issues like malaria, cholera, HIV/AIDS, mother/child health, and nutritional deficiencies.
Charmayne said her rural upbringing in Montpelier was a good preparation for this setting. For example, “As I’m sure most people can attest, news travels fast. We’re all familiar with the gossip wheel that exists in small-town America, and that principal is carried over here. In other words, if I buy six tomatoes at my weekly market, I am sure to be asked about it by some village mamas. Of course, there’s always the phenomena of casually observing the unexpected – like the random chicken that always manages to wander into my kitchen, wake me up at 4:00 a.m., or share a taxi ride with me!”
Charmayne said she appreciated being able to share her Peace Corps experience with the Leader readers because parts of the Peace Corps goal is not only helping people, but helping to promote a mutual better understanding between the peoples served and the American people.
While at Montpelier, Charmayne was very active in the band, choir, Locomotion, the musicals, student council, and many may remember her as the resident piano accompanist during her high school years. “I can’t say I do much with music these days, though I’ve always had a love of music – which has made me appreciate the stuff I hear in this country. In the span of one hour, you can go from hearing traditional call-and-response chanting, to Nigerian pop, to Celine Dion circa 1996. I even heard Christmas music blaring out of speakers in the regional capital last week!”
Charmayne appreciates hearing from friends and those from her hometown. Her e-mail address is ccooleypccam@gmail.com.
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David Belden was a longtime Montpelier educator and a former managing editor of The Leader Enterprise, now living near Nashville, Tennessee. He can be contacted at david.belden@comcast.net.
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