The Genghis Khan spiritual mausoleum was a Mongolian symbol of the unity of peoples of all languages and origins as well as a memorial to arguably the most famous Mongolian man in history. Many times through the tour, we were reminded that the mausoleum was not a burial place for Khan’s body, but for his spirit. Waling along the lucky ninety-nine steps up to the mausoleum, we circled a traditional stone mound three times clockwise, throwing a pebble on the pile at the end in order to make a wish. We learned about how the Mongolian empire was built up by one man and his love for both his people and commerce among the East and the West, and how the last remaining eight yurts of his time could represent an entire nation. In front of each yurt was a candle whose fire had not been put out since Genghis Khan’s death in order to symbolize the protection that resided over his spirit from those who dedicated themselves to him.

The day began with a horse show unlike the Kentucky Derby or rodeo shows that most Americans can identify. The Mongolian way of showing the practice of horseback riding was by displaying their abilities to perform the traditional skills of equestrian archery and acrobatics. We then visited a sand park in Inner Mongolia that featured a vast desert with many attractions. Though our day began with light rain and long bus rides, we discovered that the bus rides were opportunities to bond with the Mongolian students and the rain brought perfect weather for sliding down sand dunes and riding sand tractors along the desert on our way to there. While waiting in lines, we passed the time by burying each other in sand and sand-ball fights. We also rode a ski-lift-gone-desert over to the park, which allowed us to capture the massiveness of the land. Once we arrived, the Groton kids split up into groups with the Mongolian students and went along partaking in the many attractions of the park. Not only did we do this with the students, but we also were able to find perfect strangers who were more than willing to overlook the language barrier and overall difficulty of sand athletics in order to enjoy an all-over-the-place game of volleyball and soccer. After two hours of free roaming and playing in the sand, we then settled down with bumpy ride on top of humpy camels and an acrobatics show to end the day. The long bus rides of the day left us with many hours to get to know the Mongolian students. We learned how to (almost) pronounce all of their Mongolian names perfectly, coined them with English names, and exchanged music from all genres and languages. Singing Rolling in the Deep and a Mongolian Father’s Day Folk Song at the back of the bus was an uplifting (and somewhat noisy) end to the day.