Tselmeg '05, who came to Foxcroft as a sophomore from Mongolia, said Foxcroft has helped her open up and become a member of a community of which she is a valuable member. Her self-confidence, groomed through becoming more fluent in English and sharing her culture with her curious classmates, has had a wonderful by-product: she has translated Night by Elie Wiesel, a book about the Holocaust, into Mongolian so she can share the story with students in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of her country. "I read the book my sophomore year, and I was touched. At home, there is not a whole lot of information on the Holocaust, and in middle school I didn't learn a lot about it. During my junior year, I started to translate it," she said.

The job took her an entire summer. Her intention is to publish a few hundred copies to donate to schools in her capital city. "Also, if people want to buy it, I would sell the book and donate the money to an orphanage."

Tselmeg said when she first entered Foxcroft the faculty told her she had a lot to offer the school, but she didn't see what they saw. Thinking back on it, she said, she now realizes that what she offered them was a glimpse at a new culture." It is important, because by doing that [students] would understand different nations better, and there will be less cultural clashes. The more they understand, the more they know, which results, I think, in better communications and interrelations with different countries."

Foxcroft gave her as good as it got, she seems to think. She learned to adapt to a society that was open and friendly and had an entirely different way of expressing itself. "American people seem really open--if they feel something, they just tell it, whereas where I am from, we reserve ourselves and keep what we feel in ourselves. At first, this was problematic, but I became much better at telling people how I feel."