India – Church of South India – CMS College and yet more rain

Today, classes throughout the State of Kerala, with the exception of its very southern tip, have been cancelled for a second day because of the flooding, and the access road to CMS College this morning was blocked with fallen trees. Reportedly, landslides in the north of the state had buried some settlements and fears were growing over the number of casualties involved.

For my visit, the Sociology staff of CMS had kindly mustered some campus-based postgraduate students for me to meet and we shared a tasty typical Kerala meal of rice wrapped in banana leaves. In a lull in the rain, I was then taken on a tour of the historic 200-year old campus. The college actually celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary in 2017, and at the end of this month, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, will be attending CMA to officially commemorate its founding.

The publication, Treasury of Knowledge, publicising to upcoming event was first published in 1848 to highlight Church Mission Society news and it has been in continuous print ever since. Today, it’s the college publication.

Weather dependent, I hope to head south tomorrow to try to catch a flight back to Chennai. Trains and flights from Kochi are either cancelled or severely delayed and the Principal of CMS advised: “You head to Kochi and you’ll be here a week!”

Julia

the access road to cms college

sociology department in the rain

dedicated post grad students and head of dept wearing scarf

cms historic campus

cms administrative block

archbishop of canterbury soon to be visit celebrated