Ripon students experience life in rural Jamaica during spring break

Six Ripon College students traveled to Jamaica during last week’s spring break with Professor Emeritus of Psychology Joe Hatcher as part of a unique class.

The half-semester course taught by Hatcher, “Cross-Cultural Psychology: Impact of Culture on Everyday Life,” is designed to provide an overview of the ways that social norms, social cognition and social behavior can vary across cultures. Students in the course examined how the concept of culture ranges from parts of the world to parts of the country to parts of campus. 

Students who participated included senior Karrington Hoch; junior Britt Hable; sophomores Chloe Daly, Matt Masek and Lily McGuire; and first-year student Ava Dubach. Jen Finco, head coach of women’s soccer and Title IX coordinator, also participated.

The group spent eight days experiencing rural Jamaican culture from March 15-22, primarily in Hagley Gap and the Blue Mountain region of the island country. Members of the Ripon group were housed by local families throughout their stay. 

Hatcher said there’s supposed to be 3,000 people in Hagley Gap, but the area only consists of “a string of houses, a school and a place called a square, that’s not a square, with very nice and supportive people.”

“I think a big takeaway from the class and this trip is to view other cultures as simply different — not ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than our own,” Finco said. “The people we met and spent time with live differently than us, but it doesn’t mean they’re not happy or worse off. There are many elements of their way of life that we could learn from — the amount of time they spend outdoors, their multigenerational living and their close connections with friends and neighbors are some of the wonderful elements of their culture we experienced.”

A large portion of the trip involved the students working in local schools and administering afterschool programming. In the evenings, students participated in activities and socialized with their host families. 

“My favorite part of the trip was being able to help the kids in the schools,” Hable said. “Sharing the little tricks that I learned as a kid to better understand math and seeing their faces light up when they understood or got the problem correct was so rewarding.”

Hoch also said working in the schools was a fulfilling experience.

“My favorite part of the Jamaica trip was learning their lifestyle and then being able to put myself into their shoes for the week,” Hoch said. “I also enjoyed going to the school in the area to help the elementary students with their coursework.”

“My favorite part of the trip was being able to fully immerse myself in the culture,” Daly said. “Staying with a host family, going to school with the children and getting to know the community helped me broaden my perspective of the world. I learned very quickly that in order to make the most of my experience I had to step far out of my comfort zone. Being uncomfortable was hard but incredibly gratifying in the end.”

“It’s hard to explain just how unique this trip is, because you’re really not a tourist,” Hatcher said. “Nothing there happens differently because we’re there. There’s not a show. Nobody’s doing anything they don’t normally do. We’re really just becoming part of their world.”

Nearly 20 years ago, Hatcher was introduced to the Blue Mountain Project, a grassroots nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that has been helping rural Jamaican communities since 2004. He began taking students to the region shortly thereafter, but paused the trips beginning in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and then because of his retirement in 2023. This was the first return trip for a Ripon College group since 2019.