Duke Gardens Adventure

What do you get when you mix art analysis, a walk in the gardens, and some chickens?

The answer: last week’s Hindi class!

Last Friday, we didn’t hold our regular Hindi class. Instead, we went for a scavenger hunt! We split off into groups of 4-5 students, and each group had to explore Gray Building (looking for paintings that interested us), find vegetables in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden, and discover interesting things in the rest of Duke Gardens. Along the way, we conversed in Hindi, practicing some weird vocabulary (who knows how to say chives?) and messing around with different verb tenses.

My group started off by meeting at the Duke Chapel. All of the groups met there, and we even decided to take a class picture together. Most of our class has been together since Hindi 101 (which feels like forever ago), so we’ve become pretty tight-knit. Then we all proceeded to the Gray Building, splitting up to search for paintings that interested us. We looked around for a bit, and then we went to the Goodson Chapel inside the Divinity Building. I thought that was really cool since I had never been inside before!

My group also decided to go into the Duke Chapel to look at the differences. This meant that we ended up pretty behind the other groups, so we had to run a bit to catch up (जल्दी! जल्दी!). We ended up regrouping with the rest of the class deep in the gardens, in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden. We saw some cool stuff there: pumpkins, chickens, and even a deer!

Then, the class walked back to Main Quad. It was pretty nice, since I got a chance to talk to people in the class that I normally don’t talk to much. I learned a lot about my classmates – Shreya’s from Iowa (my first time ever meeting someone from there), Shankul works for the Duke Chapel (she gave us some inside scoops when we toured inside), and Shiv’s going to take Hindi 204 next semester (even though he’s done with his FL credit now).

Overall, it was a lot of fun! The walk in the gardens has become somewhat of a tradition in Kusumji’s classes, and I enjoy it every time. I really appreciate that Hindi classes at Duke focus both on teaching us Hindi and also on helping us make a lot of friends to use that Hindi with!

Some of my classmates shared their feedback below. 

Thulsy K

I enjoyed the nature walk very much! It was refreshing to spend time breathing fresh air and seeing all the beautiful plants in the gardens, and I also learned some new words for the animals and vegetables which we photographed. This activity also gave me the chance to connect with my classmates. There isn’t really anything that I would change about this activity! The most challenging part was finding the vegetable garden, but we eventually figured it out as a group.

Zoraver

I had a lot of fun on the nature walk. It was great to spend time with my classmates, learn more about the school, and refine/expand our hindi vocabulary. We worked together well as a team and learned more about each other. Furthermore, I was able to test my own knowledge of plants and vegetables in Hindi, learning some new words along the way. Overall, this was an excellent experience and was a wonderful break from our typical in-person classes.