the Christmas program

Yesterday we went to the kids' school first thing, to tour and finalize their application and pay. It's beautiful and very large, on a ten-acre campus. It's only eight miles from our apartment, but it takes about 45 minutes to get there.

There are around 3000 students there across all the divisions. Lots of buses. 

Here's their aquaculture garden. There are fish in the pond below and their water circulates up to the plants above.

This is the "home ec" room-- I forget exactly what they call it. It is a regular part of the curriculum where you learn all the skills needed for the home: cooking, sewing, clay modeling, and painting. 

Everything went fine with the visit, except I had forgotten some crucial documents needed for registration, but they kindly gave us the time over Christmas break to get it together. (My wonderful friends and neighbors back home are helping us sort it out.) The bigger issue is how to pay for it all. Although they said they accepted credit cards, it turns out they use a RuPay network which only accepts domestic Indian credit cards. Our offer to pay in cash was met with polite dismay; they usually refuse all cash transactions over 25,000 rupees ($350). Transferwise won't allow us to transfer money to anything classified as a "charity" in India, which apparently the school is. Fulton Bank back home requires us to be physically present to initiate a wire transfer. We suggested they open a PayPal account, which they are considering. So we are currently at a bit of a standstill. Right now, midday Friday, we are halfway through the last business day of the week before the break, and waiting on a call back from the school with advice about how to pay. We have offered to take an Uber out to the school with a giant wad of rupees, but that appears to be an unfavorable option to them-- Plan B, as the director called it. We have already asked them to make so many exceptions for us, I'm a little concerned about squandering their goodwill. Fingers crossed.

After the school visit, the children and Michael returned to the hotel to rest (the kids have mild colds), and I went to the Christmas program at the college. It was in that giant turquoise auditorium that I featured in the first blog post. See that empty chair on stage? That was apparently intended for me! Luckily my minders steered me to a front-row seat in the auditorium instead. The onstage VIPS were the chief sister in charge, the principal (college president), and the guest priest, who delivered a 30 minute address in Malayalam, stopping midway to apologize to me for using a language I didn't know. I'm sure it was a moving message! To launch the celebration, the VIPS had a ceremonial lighting of candles and then a ceremonial cutting of the Christmas fruitcake, which they proceeded to feed one another, American-wedding-cake style.

Then this happened: 

All in all, an excellent Christmas program!