2007.01.12: January 12, 2007: Headlines: COS - Cameroon: Public Health: The Newsleaders: Carie Muntifering monitors and evaluates health programs as a Peace corps Volunteer in Cameroon

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Cameroon: Peace Corps Cameroon: Peace Corps Cameroon: Newest Stories: 2007.01.12: January 12, 2007: Headlines: COS - Cameroon: Public Health: The Newsleaders: Carie Muntifering monitors and evaluates health programs as a Peace corps Volunteer in Cameroon

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Carie Muntifering monitors and evaluates health programs as a Peace corps Volunteer in Cameroon

Carie Muntifering monitors and evaluates health programs as a Peace corps Volunteer in Cameroon

She created an HIV/AIDS counselor training-and-education center so counselors and hospital staff can learn how to deal with AIDS and to prevent it. She had meetings with the residents to explain how to prevent AIDS and encouraged them to use condoms for that as well as for birth control. The residents have pretty much the same options for birth control there that we do here. But they are leery of condoms because they associate them with people who have AIDS. The women are quite interested in birth control, but the men are not. It is a sign of masculinity for them to have a lot of children. Carie wrote and applied for a grant from the British High Commision in Cameroon and received about $3,000. She used it to renovate an old hospital building and opened a maternal and child health center. With the help of the doctor and hospital staff, they put together training for six local midwives. They integrated them into the hospital system so they could use it to deliver babies there rather than in huts. Then they would have the doctor available in case of complications.

Carie Muntifering monitors and evaluates health programs as a Peace corps Volunteer in Cameroon

Through Peace Corps, Muntifering proves one can make a difference

By Candi Robinson

Friday, January 12, 2007 1:39 PM EST

What possible connection can Sartell have with Cameroon, Africa?

Carie and Jean Muntifering.

Together - but 6,700 miles apart - this mother-and-daughter team has been simultaneously teaching a small tribal village in Koza, Cameroon on the continent of Africa and Pine Meadow Elementary here in Sartell.

Carie teaches public and international health to underdevoloped countries. Jean teaches second- grade at Pine Meadow Elementary in Sartell, but Jean has spent the last two years learning from Carie right along with her second-grade classes at PME.

In turn, Jean and her students have taught the residents in Koza about themselves and America. All this through regular mail, email and phone calls.

Carie, 26, is a 1998 graduate of Sartell High School. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. She has a master's degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. Her master's degree is in public and international health and development and behavior modification. She monitors and evaluates health programs in less-developed countries. She is currently awaiting approval to continue her education and receive her doctorate in public and international health.

Part of getting her master's degree involved one year of course work and two years of field work as a member of the Peace Corps. Except for one brief visit home in May 2006, Carie has spent the last two years in Cameroon.

The aim of the Peace Corps is to educate and assist underdeveloped countries in a sustainable way so the work will continue on after the volunteer leaves. They also match each volunteer to a classroom, school or teacher in America to aid cultural awareness.

Prior to her departure, Carie met Jean's second-grade students at PME. She told them what she was going there for and they had a lot of questions. They were excited to be part of such a faraway place. Every month the students wrote letters to Carie, which she answered by mail or email. Twice a month the class would read and discuss them.

She left in September 2004. She spent 17 hours on planes between Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Paris and finally to Cameroon.

“The first week I was in culture shock,” Carie said. “I was overwhelmed by the poverty, smells, sights and sounds. It was just sensory overload.”

There were 30 Peace Corps volunteers in her group. They spent two months together training in Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon. The training covered health issues, technical terms and procedures, information about the country itself, and all of it focused on a language that is mainly French. After training, the volunteers were assigned to different villages.

Cameroon is bilingual, having both French- and English-speaking people, but it also has 280 local tribal languages. Most villagers do not speak English. Koza was Carie's assigned village. Its dwellers spoke French, Mafa and Fulfulda. Those are two tribal languages which Carie learned enough to give greetings and hold basic conversations.

It took three days to get to Koza by overnight train: an eight-hour bus ride, several hours on a bush taxi and finally a one-hour motorcycle ride. A bush taxi is a large van stuffed with anything that anyone can get in it, including animals and invariably has a flat tire somewhere along every trip. Motorcycles there carry whatever anyone can get on it also. Carie has seen up to five people on one - all carrying things, and a satellite dish on another and animals as well.

In Koza, the families make their own houses. They make blocks from sand and mud for hut walls, then use millet stalks as a thatch roof. The huts are small and numerous as each has a different purpose. One would be a bathroom, another a kitchen where they would cook food over a three-rock fire pit, another a living area and one or more for bedrooms.

Polygamy among Muslims is common so each wife has her own bedroom. The women are in charge of children so they often shared the mother's bedroom hut. Then the entire family hut group is surrounded by a mud wall for privacy. The village is actually an enclosed group of compounds.

“I was lucky,” Carie said. “I lived in a regular house with running water and electricity. It even had a regular stove. It was part of the mission hospital.”

The village consists mainly of farmers, but there are also teachers, tailors, merchants, health care workers, hospital staff, the tribal chief and government officials.

Cameroon has a government-run health system. Vaccines are available free to children and pregnant women, but others have to pay. They seldom have enough money, though. Mostly they use a barter system. They trade whatever they have to get whatever they need. So a large majority of natives do not get vaccines for that reason or because they live too far away or do not see a need for it. Consequently, that results in recurring outbreaks of diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, diptheria and meningitis. It also results in a high mortality rate.

Teaching in Africa, Carie spent her waking hours planning how she could change that. She worked hard to train health-care workers and natives how important proper diet and nutrition are in helping to prevent disease. There are times when food is either just not available or is very limited due to the terrain and growing seasons. The residents sometimes have to walk two or three miles to get water from a river, well or public water reserve. The women carry the water, firewood and everything else on their head on top of a head wrap.

She created an HIV/AIDS counselor training-and-education center so counselors and hospital staff can learn how to deal with AIDS and to prevent it. She had meetings with the residents to explain how to prevent AIDS and encouraged them to use condoms for that as well as for birth control. The residents have pretty much the same options for birth control there that we do here. But they are leery of condoms because they associate them with people who have AIDS. The women are quite interested in birth control, but the men are not. It is a sign of masculinity for them to have a lot of children.

Carie wrote and applied for a grant from the British High Commision in Cameroon and received about $3,000. She used it to renovate an old hospital building and opened a maternal and child health center. With the help of the doctor and hospital staff, they put together training for six local midwives. They integrated them into the hospital system so they could use it to deliver babies there rather than in huts. Then they would have the doctor available in case of complications.

Carie held meetings with 15 pregnant women on the advantages of having the baby there rather than in their huts. Out of the 15, only one or two had never had a child die. That's part of the reason why the average family has 6-12 children. They know they won't all live. If a child can live to 5 years old, they have a good chance to reach adulthood. If they live through the birth, they may die of other things such as malaria, malnutrition or diahrreal diseases. A lot of mothers and babies die during childbirth because they can't afford a midwife. Another reason is if a problem arises, they have to walk or get pushed in a cart to the hospital. They die along the way.

If the mother dies but the baby lives it is usually given up for adoption along with any young siblings the father can't care for. It could also go to a relative to live or a relative might come to live with the family to take the mother's place.

“Right before I left Koza,” Carie said, “the tribal chief adopted a child because the mother died. Usually the natives will bring the child to the chief, and he will find it a home.”

Koza has a government-run school system also. School is free to children from first to fifth grade. After that, the student has to pay for exam and enrollment fees, all necessary supplies and a uniform. The cost is about $200-250 per student per year. As a result, very few children continue their education past fifth grade, especially girls. In a high school class of 50 males, Carie saw only three or four girls.

After fifth grade, the girls work at home until they get married. Most of them have pre-arranged marriages from the age of 10 or so, but they are not able to actually marry until they reache maturity and start menstruation at about age 13.

Carie values the importance of education. She's seen a lot of women in the village starting small businesses. She knows education could help them succeed in handling the money and supplies they need to run their business. She can't imagine not going to school past fifth grade. Her mother Jean can't either.

Jean visited Carie in Koza for two weeks and had a wonderful time there. She brought pictures and letters back with her to share with her incoming second- graders.

“The best part of the trip,” Jean said, “besides seeing Carie, was traveling by train from Koza in the north to Linbe in the south by train. We never got bored looking out the window. It was fascinating because we watched the terrain gradually change from rocky desert to humid highlands to lush green rain forest. It was amazing.”

Teaching In America

In Jean's 2005 second-grade class, students learned about Carie and her experiences in Cameroon. They wrote letters every month. Carie wrote back. But mail was very unreliable because it goes the same route Carie and Jean did. Plane, train, bus, taxi and motorcycle. The original second-graders, now in third-grade, continually ask if there is any news about Carie. None of them can imagine not going to school past fifth grade.

All through the two years while Carie was in Cameroon, time Jean held monthly cultural-awareness sessions with her classes in regard to Koza, Cameroon and Africa. Carie's family sent American food mixes to Carie that the Koza children tried. Carie sent recipes for native food that PME students had made and tried. The native food didn't go over too well here, but pizza was a big hit in Koza.

Carie and Jean set up a question exchange between the students at both schools.

“Kids ask the best questions,” said Carie. “They aren't afraid to be direct. The first question was, ‘Are you naked?' ”

They would also ask what the kids played with, what their flag looked like and what kind of cars, clothing and food they have. They were keen to know about hockey and other sports.

Carie and Jean set up a question exchange for the students. The children wrote to each other. Carie had to translate English to French for the Koza children and French to English for PME students. They also drew pictures for each other about their lives. The PME students were surprised to learn they didn't have toys. In Koza, they make up their own games and even make their own toys. The PME students made a yarn doll to see what it was like.

Carie and Jean also set up a phone call with a speaker phone in Jean's classroom. Due to the language difference, the Koza students weren't involved in the long-distance conversation. The PME students loved hearing Carie's voice. They talked for 40 minutes and asked a lot of questions, had a great time and told everyone they knew about it.

Back in Koza, Carie had been trying to educate the mothers and daughters on how continuing past fifth grade will help their future. But it costs money they don't have. Carie went to work while Jean went to bat, and together they solved the problem for at least 12 girls in Koza.

Jean, along with all PME students, took home a letter asking for donations to help keep girls in school in Koza. The 650 students collected $1,200. A local mission group, Carie's family and the Sartell Red Hatters brought that amount to $2,000.

Carie set up a competition for girls in grades 6-11. When she taught, the Koza residents would turn her lessons into a song or dance, which they used to teach others. She told the girls in Koza to write a song, poem, essay or drawing about why it is important to go to school and get an education. Thirty-six girls entered the contest. Each grade level had a first- and second-place winner. first-place winners received an entire year of school paid for with all needed supplies and tuitions. second-place winners received a year of exam and enrollment fees paid for. The following poem was written by a second place winner:

Poem by Doumtegai Waye

Koza High School, Cameroon

Oh! Young Girl,

Be educated.

When you are educated

You are as pretty as a flower.

You are well seen.

Your ideas shine.

You think, like the men.

Oh! Young Girl,

Be educated.

When you are educated

You can dream of someday becoming someone.

If I ask you

What do you want to become,

You will answer me “Minister,”

Because nowadays,

Women are equal to men.

Oh! Young Girl,

Be educated.

When you are educated

You will be freed with the men.

You will be able to avoid early marriage,

You will be able to defeat the pandemic of the century

That, nowadays, threatens a lot of young people,

Especially girls.

Oh! Young Girl,

When you are educated

You will be able to help the children who come after

you.

You will be able to educate your children.

You will be able to counsel your husband.

You will be able to construct a good home.

Oh! Young Girl,

When you are not educated

Your ideas are archaic

Like your ancestors.

And until today

Some parents refuse to send their girls to school.

They say that girls can only cook.

They ridicule the girls.

Oh! Young Girl,

Be educated

Carie is home now and in a kind of limbo. She has been so focused for the last two years on helping everyone around her, she feels selfish spending time on herself. She can't wait to go back to school for her doctorate. She doesn't realize that she is still helping.

Because of Carie, there will be babies born in Koza that will not die.

Because of Carie, there will be mothers giving birth that will not die.

Because of Carie, there will be 12 girls in school, free for the next year.

Because of Carie, we know one person can make a difference.




Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: January, 2007; Peace Corps Cameroon; Directory of Cameroon RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Cameroon RPCVs; Public Health





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