From the Other Side of the World to Math World

When Jesse was last visited in the blogging world, he was living atop stilts in the “floating” village of Kampong Phluk teaching English to Cambodian children.

To find him now, look in a vastly different classroom where a class called Math World is being taught to college students anxious to be out in the sunshine that is not so common to this part of the world.

But, you may ask, Jesse is a math major, what’s he doing taking a 100-level math course at the end of his Junior year? Turns out he’s not taking the class, but assisting with it.

As well as attending the class and helping out when students have questions, before each class Jesse receives upper-level math credit in order to go over the work to be assigned. But even though his life and tasks today seem so far from what he was doing just over a month ago, the two experiences will never be separate from one another.

And one indication is the shoes he still wears, a few sizes too small, that were given to him by a monk who taught at the same place he did in Kampong Phluk, when he lost his own shoes.

Another might be a dip in his usual level of drive. “It’s harder to feel motivated about doing school work,” he says. Perhaps this is reflective of one of the lasting effects he has seen Cambodia having on him: the regularity of afternoon naps.

Other ways Cambodia is still a part of his being show up at times when prices seem outrageous, traffic always seems tame or Khmer involuntarily slips out of his mouth.

But as far as long-term changes and effects his time in Cambodia might have on him he says, “I feel like I need more time still to process.” He expects to be able to look back after awhile and see those changes more distinctly.

What is it that he’s processing? Maybe it’s what Cambodia taught him. “[I learned about] Cambodia as a country, its people, its tragic recent history, and about what it’s like to live without all the luxuries I take for granted,” Jesse said.

With this knowledge, he says, “I hope I will be more aware of how my choices affect people in countries like Cambodia—developing countries, where tourism and exports to the developed world are important to their economy.”

Despite the things he enjoyed about Cambodia and hopes one day to travel back to (Khmer food, his Cambodian family), there were pieces of Cambodia that helped him come to value American culture in a different way. In particular he appreciates the better treatment of women and minorities, economic freedom, and the relative lack of corruption that can be found in America.

For Jesse, one of the hardest things about his Study-Service Term (SST) was, “Seeing cultural practices I disagreed with but not really feeling comfortable voicing my opinion.”

Jesse found that SST “made it more important to me that I choose a job that allows me to help people in some way.”

But for now, he can be found at Goshen College, where after being gone for three months, he’s found that things haven’t changed much. Outside of the classroom, Jesse might be found sitting in his room in Coffman preparing for Math World, taking naps, “watching other people do their homework,” or, nearly every other day, outside of the Rec Fit Center, playing Ultimate Frisbee.

And in all likelihood, you’ll wonder why his shoes are too small.