Hindi Class

So we just completed our first Hindi class. It was 3 months for 3 days a week. I can't say that I've been fully satisfied, and I'm not sure I will take the next level. We learned a lot of words - parts of the body, animals, some everyday phrases, etc. But we only got to verb tenses the last 2 weeks of class. And even as we learned all these words, she never gave us the gender of the noun which is helpful to know as other word endings change with the gender. We did learn how to tell time though. Before taking the class I had just been listening to a teach yourself hindi book, but I had been losing motivation in that, so at least paying for the class kept me coming.
Anyway we had to take a final test which wasn't too bad. We had to write a little conversation in hindi, write an introduction about ourselves in Hindi, tell time, know different verb tenses, and I even wrote everything using devanagari script - the Hindi alphabet. Also we had to make a short little book written in hindi and then had to present it to the class and also just speak some Hindi as well.

So Dr. Anjana, our teacher, had us all, including the other Hindi class she teaches, over to her flat for lunch. So there were maybe 8 Americans, 1 Iraqi, 5 or so Germans, 1 Spaniard, a couple Italians, 1 Belgian, I Iranian....and of course Indians. We had samosas and Cholle Puri for lunch. Puri is like a fried and puffed up tortilla..kind of. Cholle is a chickpea kind of stew thing. And then we had tons of Indian Methii - bite sized sweets - because everyone brought a box for the hostess. These Methii, well I'm kind of in love with. Looking at them you have no clue what the hell they are - many times they have silver foil on them, crazy colors and shapes. Most are made out a paste of cashew and nuts and dried fruit.
Haider is in the picture with the little girl. However by the end of the party she wouldn't come near him, because one of Dr. A's daughters told her in Hindi that Haider wanted to take her home with him.
One of the funniest moments at Dr. Anjana's house was when Dorothy 'hai' brought out cupcakes. Now I think every single person from Europe and America, including the guys, when they saw the cupcakes exclaimed, "You have an OVEN??!!!"
You just don't realize how much we use ovens until you don't have one and also you can cook meat. That really tends to limit any American food you can make...