School Week

My Ride! This is the auto-rickshaw I take to school everyday.

Today marks the conclusion of my first full week of classes at AIIS. Let me start by saying that my AIIS professors are amazing teachers and individuals. I have two teachers: Vidhuji and Rashmiji. Rashmiji is working on her PhD in Hindi at Jaipur University. She has two sons, 10 months and 6 years. Vidhuji has a PhD in English. He’s the only AIIS teacher who learned Hindi as his first language. When Vidhuji was born, his father insisted that every member of the household spoke only pure Hindi around him, not any regional dialects of Hindi. Apparently everybody listened because Vidhuji was 14 when he first started learning a regional dialect of Hindi and English.

Not only is AIIS super selective about who they hire, but they require that their instructors take language-teaching training course before they start and continue to take training courses while they are with the institute. For his training last year, Vidhuji went another AIIS sight and learned Urdu. Grammatically, Urdu is almost identical to Hindi, but Urdu is written in the Arabic script and draws a lot of vocabulary from Persian. When we were struggling to learn the Devanagari (Hindi) script, Vidhuiji kept us from getting discouraged by saying things like “The script is hard. Even the Hindi teachers struggled when we were learning Urdu. It’s hard, and look how well your doing!” I was nice because I really felt like he understood what we were grappling with. (I say were because we finished learning the script Wednesday. I still need practice, but a least it all doesn’t look like scribbles anymore!)

At AIIS, we have 4 hours of instruction starting at 9am. However, each hour is considered its own class, and, because it’s India, our classes are nicely punctuated by tea breaks (काय अवकाश)।On a particular day, we may spend the first class reviewing from the day before, the second class learning something new, the class hour practicing what we just learned in small groups, and the fourth class doing some exercise that reviews several things we have learned. Vidhuji and Rashmiji draw-up a weekly schedule, but they are really flexible. Every day they ask us what we want to work on, and if we want to spend extra time on something or another they’re completely obliging. On top of our normal instruction, we have personal tutorials twice a week for an hour. What we do in the tutorials is totally up to us. I’m planning on reading a book out loud. At first it will just be to practice sounding out the words, but eventually I’ll actually be able to understand the story.

This trip is unlike any of the other trips I’ve taken because I’m entirely focused on learning the language. Though I took Chinese classes in China, I also took two business classes, and I never really intended on pursuing my Chinese learning after the trip (not to say I didn’t enjoy learning Chinese because I did and it inspired me to learn Hindi). Because I’ve been to Jaipur before, I don’t feel like I need to rush out and see all the major sites. Plus, afternoons here are well over 100 degrees, so rushing anywhere is out of the question. On top of that, nightlife in Jaipur is basically non-existent. Moral of the story, I’m content just going to my homestay or a café after school and studying.

The trip is different in that it’s the first time I’ve done a homestay (picture at right is the Bhatia's house) . The whole idea behind a homestay is that you have a chance to use your language skills and you get more insight into the culture. In looking forward to this trip, I was definitely most excited and most nervous about the homestay aspect. So far, my homestay experience has gone well. I've gotten use to my room and the Guru hanging in it, so I no longer feel trapped when I spend time in it. I’ve also been spending more time in other parts of the house, which is nice and gives me a chance to observe the family/ neighborhood. All the family members have started opening up and I guess I have begun to let my guard down a little. The only negative thing that has happened was when Mrs. Batia told us that Internet was going to cost 500INR/ month rather than the 300INR/ month we had previously agreed upon. When we questioned her, she said it was because she realized that one of the three of us didn’t have a laptop and wouldn’t be paying. It kind of pissed me off, but, at the same time, 500INR (~10USD) is not a very great amount of money and it’s not worth causing tension over. And really, considering that I’m really well fed, don’t have a strict curfew, and have unlimited use of AC and WiFi, I’m much better off than some of my classmates and shouldn’t complain.

The one surprising thing about doing a homestay is that even though I'm living with native Jaipur-eans, I feel insulated from Jaipur to a certain degree. As I said before, I don't do a lot of sightseeing, and I'm nowhere near being conversational in Hindi. On top of that I take all me meals at home or school, and don’t really have to shop for anything but cloths or souvenirs. As a result, I’m not forced interact with my neighborhood or the main part of the city very often. In China, I had to take to the streets because I lived in a dorm and needed food, and getting food was how I got over a lot of my discomfort. In this case, I’m no longer uncomfortable in Jaipur, but I’m not comfortable either. Granted, I haven’t been here very long. I’m planning on trying out the yoga classes at the women’s college down the road, so maybe that will help me integrate more.

It rained this week!!!!! On Wednesday, Hailey (also in my homestay) and I decided to go get a fresh lime soda after school. The café we were headed for is about an 8min walk from our school. By the time we arrived there we we’re both swimming in out own sweat. “Has it been this hot here the whole time and I just haven’t noticed?” I asked. Haley and I agreed that it was in fact our hottest day in Jaipur yet. We got home around 3pm, and around 4pm I looked outside my window and realized it was dark outside. Weird. About 10 minutes later I realized that dust was settling on the keyboard of my computer and the electricity had gone out. I walked out to the porch, and the air was totally saturated with dust. I’ve never seen anything ever close to a sandstorm, so to me the relatively small sandstorm (it only lasted 30min) seemed like the end of the world. But then it rained, and everybody was happy.

However, I learned today that the rain we had this week is not the start of the monsoon. In fact, the monsoon is running late.

This weekend I’m going to Saharia Organic Resort with two other AIIS-ers. Jessie is coming from Delhi to join us as well. You can check out their website: www.sahariaorganicresort.com. They have a pool and camels to ride, so I’m, anticipating good times.

Me wearing what I think is called a Kurta
standing outside of school.