I started off the day at SECMOL on a rough note, with a breakfast of burnt chipote and some strange, unidentifiable greens. After I managed to eat it all, though, my day quickly improved as I went to hang out with some SECMOL students who taught me how to hand wash my clothes. One of my new friends Sonam showed me the right methods to get out stains from my shirts. It was actually pretty fun to learn to hand wash, a skill that I’m sure will definitely come in handy in the future.

Because I took so long to wash all of my clothes, I arrived late to a presentation we were receiving from a guest speaker that day, a French archeologist who specialized in Ladakhi ruins. After the archaeologist’s introductory presentation ended, our group then got on a bus so he could show us his places of study.

Before going to the ruins, however, we stopped by a place called Ladakh Arts and Media Organization, or LAMO for short. At LAMO, we walked around different galleries and workspaces of local Ladakhi artists who were working on different media forms ranging from paintings to sculpture. It was amazing to see some of the local art forms, as these artists were all extremely talented.

After this tour, we left to go explore the Ladakhi ruins with our French specialist. We first hiked up a small hill through a grassy pasture to an old military lookout, atop which we could see for miles around the open area of Ladakh. We then drove to a more barren land with large walls, where the archeologist explained that these walls used to be the structures for living spaces from hundreds of years ago.

Once we finished this archeological tour, we returned to SECMOL to have dinner. Since our time at SECMOL was coming to an end, we took part in a sort of closing ceremony with the SECMOL students. We were all prese nted with a small handmade scarf and a card, in which all of the students signed their names and wrote nice sentiments to us about the impact we had made on them during our time there. We also all gave a small “token” to the school which was a small item with sentimental value to us that we wanted the school to have. I gave up my small rugby ball keychain, and explained that it was because I played rugby back home which was extremely important to me.

Later that night, the Nat Geo students and the SECMOL students both performed dances for each other to celebrate the time we had spent together. Our group danced to “Party in the USA,” while the SECMOL students danced a more traditional Ladakhi dance. After our choreographed dance, all students then stayed in the large meeting room and had a farewell dance party. We listened to English, Ladakhi, Hindi, and Spanish music. Even though at least half of us could not understand the music at any given point, we all had an amazing time hanging out with each other for one of the last times. It was very emotional, as we had all become extremely close during this short time we had spent together. Even though we were sad to soon be saying goodbye, it was a fantastic last night together.