Learning Hindi

As the trip gets closer, I am more and more aware of my need to learn at least a few more phrases in Hindi. I just don't seem to get past remembering much more than the 3 phrases that I learned the first day of Hindi class. Luckily, I do recognize more words when I hear them, but I am having great difficulty still putting together phrases or remembering more than a handful of common phrases. After just a basic google search, I found this list of helpful phrases,
http://www.linguanaut.com/english_hindi.htm and decided to make myself some powerpoint flashcards with phrase and picture. So far I have tried learning Hindi by a class that was taught using the immersion method http://www.thegln.org/, watching Hindi movies, and of course practicing with Abhijeet. I do feel like I have more comfort and familiarity with the the language than I have in Chinese (I studied for one year), but I still am stuck only speaking the same few phrases. As a language teacher, this is frustrating and humbling.

मेरा नाम बेक्का है.

Mērā nāma bēkkā hai. (My name is Becca) seems to be not only the first line I learned in Hindi, but the one that I keep coming back to when I say that I am going to practice Hindi. If I dig deeper, I can usually remember about 5 more lines that I learned along with a random mix of verbs and food related words (which I learned very quickly). That was step one in preparation for a visit to India. In these past few weeks, Abhijeet and I have been working through the other logistics of the trip and had some surprising, frustrating, and unique experiences. We both took our passports to be renewed. I sent mine in the mail and was able to check the status online. It showed up express mail at my doorstep in approximately 3 weeks. Then I was off to the company that the Indian embassy outsources tourist visas to to get that taken care of Yes, you read that correctly; Indian tourist visas are outsourced to a private company. All in all none of it was a very painful experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find that since neither of my parents were of Pakistani origin, I was able to get the 5 year tourist visa with no trouble at all. Abhijeet, however, did not have the same luck or ease with his process. He took off work, marched down to the Indian embassy with all paperwork in hand, was treated rudely, and came home with a blue "ticket" (remember the ticket stub you get at a fundraiser if you want to win a door prize..that is the same kind that the Indian embassy uses to keep track of passports). We waited, waited, waited, and started to stress that his passport would not get back in time until finally we decided to just head in to the embassy in DC and try to find someone to ask about the status. Well, that is,we decided this finally after not being able to reach anyone at all at the embassy through phone or email. We joined the others in the waiting game and heard stories about passports that were done in 3 days and others who were waiting over a month. There seemed to be no system to the process of picking up passports or other paperwork and I was comforted by the fact that no one there knew what was going on so I wasn't alone. Some people were even asking me if I was in the line. Well, I was joining Abhijeet as close to the front as possible so that when the one woman working there called "visa renewal" we would be able to jump right up to the window. So if that was the line, then sure we were in it! The great part of the whole experience was that everyone felt a bit lost, so one by one they began sharing stories with the person next to them to compare, sympathize, or simply vent. What is it about shared dramatic experiences that causes humans to open up more freely to strangers? It reminded me of the time I was at the grocery store before snowmaggedon number one when everyone was especially chatty and bonding with fellow customers. More recently, this happened again while waiting (two times) to have my car inspected. Each time I quickly made a new friend sharing stories of car inspection/DMV woes. If we were a totally efficient society, what would we find to bond with strangers about?
Anyway, this experience was a good taste for me of what Abhijeet likes to describe as the bureaucracy of India that I can prepare to encounter on my trip. It was also a lesson in how valuable a stranger's story, advice, or simply listening ear can be when you are traveling. I expect there will be more of both as my journey goes on. Chalo Chalen India.