Monday, April 20, 2009

Mongolian Throat Singing: An Introduction




Welcome to the blog of the next two years.

If all goes as planned, I will be serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia for the next two years. I'll be working in English Education and Community Development. I'll be part of batch 'M20,' which means I'll be part of the 20th group of PCVs to be sent to Mongolia. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT GOING TO MONGOLIA. I've carried out some pretty crazy plans in my 24 years, but I think this will be the wildest yet!

I'm pumped about: horse culture, desert and steppe, Genghis Khan's people, Buddhism and Shamanism, the Cyrillic alphabet, Mongolian throat singing, a nation full of cowboys, wrestling pastimes, modern day nomads, livestock of all kinds, and gers (Mongolin Yurts!).

Siberian winter, bucket bathes, nasty food, desolate landscapes, extreme loneliness and frustration? BRING IT ON!

The purpose of this blog will be to update about all the interesting things I learn about Mongolia along the way. I would like to avoid updates like "OMG I'm so lonely and I feel like I'm going crazy and I'm tired of being cold and I'm tired of bad food" wah wah wahing. That stuff I'll post in LiveJournal and you can read that here if you want: lisonay.livejournal.com. No sir or mam, this one will be about cool stuff only. And, until I report for duty on June 10, 2009, it will all be based on what I've read in books or found on google.


Ok, Ok, here we go!