Alan Knight Training Centre

 

In St Mary’s Church, Yupukari light is beginning to emerge from behind Guyana’s Pakaraima mountains seen in Anne Twisleton’s picture. The Angelus rings at the Alan Knight Training Centre and the office begins taking us up into its eternal rhythm, fitting the new day into psalm and scripture and praise. Mattins is followed by mass, when the students and their wives are joined by the villagers, so there are usually 30 or so of us each morning. Priest and servers go to the altar and the Holy Sacrifice is offered. Everyone gathers around the altar to feed on the bread of life, the bread which will strengthen and nourish and inspire the life of the day. There are plenty of boys keen to serve, so two assist each day - wearing knee-length green scapulars over their shirts and shorts. After Mass the school bell rings and the compound is full of cheerful children, just like a school playground anywhere. On Mondays the school day begins with flag raising and everyone singing the National Anthem 'Dear Land of Guyana' written by an Anglican priest. At 8.30 am the church bell rings again and the Alan Knight Training Centre ordinands gather in Church for half an hour of meditation and prayer. Despite the background hum of the nearby school, it is a time of peace and stillness, of listening to the still, small voice of God, and growing closer to him. Then everyone moves across to the study and the day's classes begin. 

The picture is of the first group of ordinands at the Alan Knight Training Centre (1982-5) which Fr Allan Buik, Anne Twisleton and I succeeded 1987-1990. Fr Brian writes of a typical day: ‘At noon the Angelus rings, so we all stand and pray it together, and then continue our discussions. By 12.30 everyone is more than ready for lunch followed by a siesta - not always very enjoyable as it is now very hot and the clergy house has a zinc roof which is too low, so it quickly becomes an oven. However a hammock on the breezy back verandah is very comfortable indeed. Each week the students write an essay, and in the afternoons they come for tutorials. Evensong is sung each day at 5.30 pm and into it is woven the work, study and frustration and joy which each day brings in its train. The Anthem of Our Lady reminds us that Mary has a special love and care for us and cherishes us with a mother's love. A time for intercession and to be brought close to all those so far away who are loved and missed. Suddenly, darkness falls and it is time for supper. Rice and fish, or meat (if a cow has been killed at the parish ranch or the students have been out hunting), sometimes the joy of fresh mangoes or other delicious fruit. Down comes the mosquito net, into the cool sheets and sleep follows very quickly.

Rancher Diane McTurk, shown sending a radio message in Anne Twisleton’s sketch and famous for her pet giant otters, was an invaluable support to the Alan Knight Training Centre in Guyana’s Rupununi region. ‘Staggers on the Savannah’ was AKTC’s nickname taken from that of St Stephen’s House, Oxford where its first Principal, Fr Doolan had been a student and from where he shaped the Anglocatholic syllabus and pattern of training captured in his report. Brian and Fr Donald Percy had left their Company of Mission Priests parishes in the UK to train as USPG missionaries flying to Guyana to serve as Principal and Rupununi parish priest respectively 1982-5 based in Yupukari near the Brazilian border. Archbishop Alan Knight’s memorial drew in personnel and funding from the UK to serve Knight’s passion to develop pastoral and evangelistic work in Guyana’s interior under the auspices of Anglocatholic vision. That vision was imperative to his successor Bishop Randolph George whose Diocesan synod approved AKTC, a theological college for training Amerindians to become priests. The training and syllabus of AKTC had full determination to form priests of the universal Church not ‘local priests’ even if many candidates were chosen at village meetings. Like the ordinands I was swept out of my comfort zone, into AKTC with its aim to bring the fullness of the church - the eucharist - down rivers through forests and savannah to every Amerindian settlement.  

Settlements in Guyana’s interior have people speaking up to nine dialects which sometimes put English into second place. A major challenge for the Alan Knight Training Centre was bringing Amerindians of such varied dialect together for 3 years to learn in English. This  presented problems of inculturation as radical as those faced by the Church of England staff. In Fr Doolan’s description of AKTC I (1982-1985) there is no common meal, something we achieved in AKTC II (1987-1990) through Anne Twisleton’s working with the ordinands’ wives to negotiate food preferences eg for or against fish with scales or skin. Many Guyanese coastlanders find the monotonous Interior diet of cassava and fish difficult though inevitable on account of the cost of transporting canned or bagged food from the coast, Brazil or Venezuela. This partly explains why AKTC training was done using English missionaries since in the 1980s no Guyanese could be found able and willing to lead. It represented an unfortunate paternalism towards Amerindians but this was the political and social reality of Guyana forty years ago. 

The choice of Yupukari, Rupununi for the Alan Knight Training Centre in Guyana was meant to be protective of Amerindians but ordinands and families ended up being exposed there to the damaging incursions of miners from Brazil trading industrial alcohol for local handicrafts. Advantageously they used guns to shoot game targeted for millennia with bow and arrow. Though hunting and farming was planned as a key component of AKTC, scarcity of game, time taken travelling long distances to farms, endemic malaria as well as chronic drunkenness among villagers led to the reconsideration of Yupukari as venue after AKTC I. The cost of rebuilding AKTC elsewhere was deemed prohibitive so Fr Allan Buik and myself were tasked with helping people cope with these difficulties. Though AKTC II started like AKTC I with twelve ordinands, only six survived the course somewhat linked to the chronic shortage of food. Nevertheless AKTC enriched the Diocese of Guyana with eighteen Amerindian priests most of whom have provided faithful service sometimes against heavy odds. These odds include leading their communities in tackling miners polluting their drinking water and logging firms with disrespect for Amerindians and communication problems with the coastal Church. 

Before the Alan Knight Training Centre ran 1982-1990 in Guyana’s interior cohabitation without marriage was the default of Amerindians so another challenge facing new priests on return to their communities was addressing this culture. At Yupukari during AKTC II we worked with the local priest on encouraging marriage, warning cohabitees that unless they accepted the sacrament of marriage they would no longer be welcome to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. On a lighter note in 1988 I was joined by Anne, my fiancée and we got married in Yupukari (picture) by Amerindian priest, Fr Edwin Roger’s (right). This led to people saying ‘Father do what Father say!’ My marriage came about because Anne, widowed with two children and like me as USPG missionary only in Buenos Aires, was advised by the Bishop of Argentina that the marriage planned for after AKTC II should be brought forward for the benefit of Anne’s childrens, David and John. This happened through the generosity of our friend Fr Allan Buik (second from right). Though I left the Company of Mission Priests the three of us worked well together.