PORTAGE | When Christopher Nelson first walked into his classroom at the S.I. !Gobs school in Omaruru, Namibia, the only chair there had been wrapped around the bars that secured a window.

The desks were on the floor and trash was strewn throughout the room.

"I walked into the room and realized my lesson was out," he said, describing the room as "looking like a war" had been fought there.

Nelson, 28, gestured to his students to enter. Throughout the day and through gesture and body language directions from Nelson, the students straightened up the room. He remained calm.

"The next day I spoke to the kids and they listened," he said.

For the next year and a half Nelson, a 1998 Portage High School graduate, was assigned to teach the students, ages 12 to 25, math and English.

What Nelson hoped he accomplished in the classroom with a tin roof and concrete floors was to inspire the students to learn, he said.

"The theme of my classroom was education is freedom. I wanted to echo that every day of their lives," said Nelson. Most of his students in the segregated country didn't look at education as the way up or out of their situation. Instead, it was a way to spend their time. He's hoping his time with them changed that attitude.

"For some it worked, for some, they realized it was too late for themselves, but maybe not for their children," he said.

Nelson recently returned home from a two-year stint with the Peace Corps, a life-changing experience, he says, that has given him not only a more global perspective on life, but has given him a greater appreciation of his own.

Nelson joined the Peace Corps after finding himself unsatisfied with his life, even though he was teaching "at the best school in Indianapolis."

Something was missing.

"I was good at teaching, but inside I was not happy with myself, with my achievements," he said. A friend had joined the Peace Corps and sent him letters about her experiences. He decided he would apply, too.

Initially assigned to South Africa, that assignment was canceled at the last minute and he was sent to Namibia.

"I was, like sure, fine, send me anywhere. My first assignment was teaching teachers and I hated it," he said. He spent his first five months in the country organizing a library, something he found frustrating.

He also absorbed the culture and learned to be more "Namibian" and lead life at a little slower pace, which in retrospect, he said, helped him deal with that first day in his classroom.

"I'm really satisfied with what I did. If one of my goals was to teach the importance of education, I feel that's what I did," said Nelson. Now finished with his Peace Corps obligation, he intends to go on to graduate school.