Happiness is being still (posted by Devin)
I never thought I would feel so relieved to be UNpacking! As we are planning on staying in Varanasi for the next 3-4 weeks, we had the pleasure of unpacking our bags and storing them in a closet while we settle into our new home with Virendra and Suchila Singh. It feels blissful to be living out of a closet instead of a backpack, although my meager "wardrobe" hardly needs a whole closet.
We will have to take some pictures to post, but we are actually sharing two adjoining rooms that are separated from the main house by a garden/courtyard. One room will be our bedroom and we have a separate room for studying in (much needed given the amount of Hindi homework we have!). We will be sharing meals with our host family. We had our first delicious meal this afternoon: fresh roti (flatbread), dhal, sabbzi (vegetable), and curd (yogurt). YUM!
Both of us feel excited to be moving slowly here, carefully expanding the circle of places that we have visited, taking our time to see the numerous sites in this historic city, and most importantly, building more lasting connections with people here. People are very happy to help us with our Hindi, giving us informal Hindi lessons over dinner, coffee or chai.
I'm struggling to learn Devanagari, the Hindi script. This is especially difficult for me because my English handwriting is atrocious, so getting my hands to cooperate in making the flowing letters of Devanagari is a challenge. Learning the script is extremely helpful because, as in Thai and Lao, but unlike English, there is a one-to-one relationship between sounds and letters. So once you know the script, you can (in theory) pronounce any written word correctly, even if you don't know what it means. Of course, there are numerous sounds in Hindi that do not exist in English... so knowing the script is only a start. Amber knows most of the single letters, but is still learning the compound letters (when two consonants are combined without an intervening vowel). For me, I am just trying to learn all the basic letters before my next class tomorrow...
All this talk of Hindi makes me want to get back to my studies so that Amber doesn't get too much more ahead of me!
We will have to take some pictures to post, but we are actually sharing two adjoining rooms that are separated from the main house by a garden/courtyard. One room will be our bedroom and we have a separate room for studying in (much needed given the amount of Hindi homework we have!). We will be sharing meals with our host family. We had our first delicious meal this afternoon: fresh roti (flatbread), dhal, sabbzi (vegetable), and curd (yogurt). YUM!
Both of us feel excited to be moving slowly here, carefully expanding the circle of places that we have visited, taking our time to see the numerous sites in this historic city, and most importantly, building more lasting connections with people here. People are very happy to help us with our Hindi, giving us informal Hindi lessons over dinner, coffee or chai.
I'm struggling to learn Devanagari, the Hindi script. This is especially difficult for me because my English handwriting is atrocious, so getting my hands to cooperate in making the flowing letters of Devanagari is a challenge. Learning the script is extremely helpful because, as in Thai and Lao, but unlike English, there is a one-to-one relationship between sounds and letters. So once you know the script, you can (in theory) pronounce any written word correctly, even if you don't know what it means. Of course, there are numerous sounds in Hindi that do not exist in English... so knowing the script is only a start. Amber knows most of the single letters, but is still learning the compound letters (when two consonants are combined without an intervening vowel). For me, I am just trying to learn all the basic letters before my next class tomorrow...
All this talk of Hindi makes me want to get back to my studies so that Amber doesn't get too much more ahead of me!