In 2018 Adul Samon and his boys’ soccer team were rescued from a flooded Thai cave. During the rescue effort, Adul took on an unexpected leadership role as an interpreter. Last spring Adul was the inaugural recipient of Middlebury’s Global Citizen’s Award, and he and his teacher at the Band Wiang Phan School joined Laurie Patton to discuss, among other things, the power of language.