Interior Developments
Fr Oliver Rafferty tells us of developments in the interior of guyana in South America
The parish of St Ignatius lies at the end of the rainforests of Guyana in the extreme west of the country. Geographically, it is a long narrow length of territory, some 400 kilometres long and about 50 kilometres wide, along the border with our giant neighbour Brazil. Altogether about 25,000 people live in the area, of whom twenty thousand are Catholic. This represents approximately twenty five percent of the Catholic population of the country.
For convenience the parish is sub-divided into three areas. In the north are the Pakaraima Mountains, with their Patamona speaking peoples, comprising some fifteen villages. Fr Paul Martin, well known to the readers of Jesuits and Friends, looks after these villages which he traverses on foot, it being a mountainous area with no roads. Fr Paul’s main centre is Kurukabaru, and it is from there that he fans out to the other villages in his pastoral care.
The central region, although somewhat mountainous to the north, is mostly savannah and Macusi speaking. This part of the parish is looked after by myself, operating from the village of St Ignatius. It includes fifteen other villages.
Further south lie the Wapishiana speaking villages of the deep savannah where the 85 year old Fr Peter Britt-Compton serves twelve villages. The main centre of population is in the south in Aishalton, but, owing to various difficulties, it has not been possible to have a resident priest there for twenty years. Fr Britt spends about four months each year travelling in the deep south, spending the rest of the time living at St Ignatius. The rainy season and its aftermath are such that many roads, for the most part dirt tracks, are simplyimpassible.
It would be impossible to continue the work of the Church in the parish if we did not have dedicated lay helpers. These co-workers, both men and women, not only teach catechism to the children, but prepare people for the sacraments, conduct Sunday services, and bury the dead in the absence of a priest.
The remoteness of the region means that the Amerindian people, among whom we work, are not always given their fair share of resources from central government. Although the government is in many ways willing to do its best, some of the problems seem intractable. Our region has the lowest educational attainment record of any in the country. Schools are often badly equipped and lack even basic resources such as books. Health care is, at times, hit and miss. At Lethem, near St Ignatius and the most developed settlement in the parish, there is an ill-equipped hospital with only one doctor. At Aishalton there is a fairly well equipped hospital, but no doctor. Of course, when one uses the term hospital it can be misleading. These institutions bear little similarity to such places in the developed world.
Our proximity to Brazil is a mixed blessing. Whilst people go there for medical treatment, and sometimes for schooling, we find that children often leave school at thirteen or fourteen to go to work in Brazil. Mothers will often take jobs there and simply leave their children behind with friends or neighbours. The wages for domestic workers in Brazil tend to be higher than those of teachers in Guyana. On the other hand there is often resentment and prejudice against Amerindians to be found there. More recently we have been establishing contact with the Catholic Church in Roraima, our neighbouring diocese on the Brazilian side, to discuss a common pastoral approach in working with Amerindian people.
The work of the priests in this area of Guyana is front line evangelization. We do our best to provide the people with the sacraments, and assist them in understanding the faith. We are also involved in trying to discern what the Gospel means to people who are, in many ways, so different from us. In one hundred years of missionary activity in this part of Guyana not one vocation to the priesthood or the religious life has been forthcoming.
Amerindian peoples have many of the problems which face societies in the West - alcoholism, drug addiction, AIDS, teenage pregnancy (sometimes as young as eleven or twelve), but these are exacerbated in a situation where many aspects of Amerindian culture are beginning to fragment in the face of encroachment from outside influences. Some aspects of First World intrusion have been helpful but, with the growing desire on the part of many to have a better life style, there is also deterioration in the idea of community and a growing indifference to the needs of others.
After a certain amount of reflection and prayer, we are hoping to reorganise and re-evaluate our mission here in the ‘Interior’ in the hope that we might be more effective in our service of the Gospel and the Amerindian people whom we serve. By September we will be joined by a Jesuit Scholastic, and a newly professed Jesuit Brother, plus another priest. We are hoping to renovate and re-equip a convent building at Aishalton, which was abandoned twenty years ago and discussions are taking place with a group of nuns in the hope that they will move in. Meanwhile, two Canadian laywomen missionaries will tend to the medical and social needs of the sick and elderly. They will also help with catechism classes and teach parenting skills and sewing. They will live for a time in the newly renovated convent.
One big problem we face is isolation. It is difficult to co-ordinate pastoral work because the distances between priests and workers is so great and the terrain difficult to negotiate. These issues are compounded by others factors such as the lack of electricity (only two villages in the whole of the area have electricity), no running water anywhere, no telephones and only one post office. We are hoping to install satellite e-mail systems in three of our centres: Kurukabaru, St Ignatius and Aishalton, just to keep us in touch with the outside world. By these means we hope to to able to encourage one another, reduce loneliness and plan and co-ordinate our pastoral work more effectively.
In the next few years we are hoping to have more assistance from our Jesuit brothers elsewhere in South America. We are in touch with Jesuits in north east Brazil and soon one of their number will be spending three months with us to learn English. In November, Fr Paul Martin and I will address the Jesuit Provincials of Latin America at their bi-annual conference to explain the needs of Guyana and invite them to send us a few men.
At a time of retrenchment elsewhere, we are beginning to expand - as foolish as that may seem - trusting, not in our own efforts or resources, but in the God who must ‘give the increase’ and bless all our endeavours. In this isolated corner of the Lord’s vineyard, we are carrying on the work begun a century ago by our Jesuit forebears, sharing our faith in the love of Christ - that faith which alone has the power to save.
The parish of St Ignatius lies at the end of the rainforests of Guyana in the extreme west of the country. Geographically, it is a long narrow length of territory, some 400 kilometres long and about 50 kilometres wide, along the border with our giant neighbour Brazil. Altogether about 25,000 people live in the area, of whom twenty thousand are Catholic. This represents approximately twenty five percent of the Catholic population of the country.
For convenience the parish is sub-divided into three areas. In the north are the Pakaraima Mountains, with their Patamona speaking peoples, comprising some fifteen villages. Fr Paul Martin, well known to the readers of Jesuits and Friends, looks after these villages which he traverses on foot, it being a mountainous area with no roads. Fr Paul’s main centre is Kurukabaru, and it is from there that he fans out to the other villages in his pastoral care.
The central region, although somewhat mountainous to the north, is mostly savannah and Macusi speaking. This part of the parish is looked after by myself, operating from the village of St Ignatius. It includes fifteen other villages.
Further south lie the Wapishiana speaking villages of the deep savannah where the 85 year old Fr Peter Britt-Compton serves twelve villages. The main centre of population is in the south in Aishalton, but, owing to various difficulties, it has not been possible to have a resident priest there for twenty years. Fr Britt spends about four months each year travelling in the deep south, spending the rest of the time living at St Ignatius. The rainy season and its aftermath are such that many roads, for the most part dirt tracks, are simplyimpassible.
It would be impossible to continue the work of the Church in the parish if we did not have dedicated lay helpers. These co-workers, both men and women, not only teach catechism to the children, but prepare people for the sacraments, conduct Sunday services, and bury the dead in the absence of a priest.
The remoteness of the region means that the Amerindian people, among whom we work, are not always given their fair share of resources from central government. Although the government is in many ways willing to do its best, some of the problems seem intractable. Our region has the lowest educational attainment record of any in the country. Schools are often badly equipped and lack even basic resources such as books. Health care is, at times, hit and miss. At Lethem, near St Ignatius and the most developed settlement in the parish, there is an ill-equipped hospital with only one doctor. At Aishalton there is a fairly well equipped hospital, but no doctor. Of course, when one uses the term hospital it can be misleading. These institutions bear little similarity to such places in the developed world.
Our proximity to Brazil is a mixed blessing. Whilst people go there for medical treatment, and sometimes for schooling, we find that children often leave school at thirteen or fourteen to go to work in Brazil. Mothers will often take jobs there and simply leave their children behind with friends or neighbours. The wages for domestic workers in Brazil tend to be higher than those of teachers in Guyana. On the other hand there is often resentment and prejudice against Amerindians to be found there. More recently we have been establishing contact with the Catholic Church in Roraima, our neighbouring diocese on the Brazilian side, to discuss a common pastoral approach in working with Amerindian people.
The work of the priests in this area of Guyana is front line evangelization. We do our best to provide the people with the sacraments, and assist them in understanding the faith. We are also involved in trying to discern what the Gospel means to people who are, in many ways, so different from us. In one hundred years of missionary activity in this part of Guyana not one vocation to the priesthood or the religious life has been forthcoming.
Amerindian peoples have many of the problems which face societies in the West - alcoholism, drug addiction, AIDS, teenage pregnancy (sometimes as young as eleven or twelve), but these are exacerbated in a situation where many aspects of Amerindian culture are beginning to fragment in the face of encroachment from outside influences. Some aspects of First World intrusion have been helpful but, with the growing desire on the part of many to have a better life style, there is also deterioration in the idea of community and a growing indifference to the needs of others.
After a certain amount of reflection and prayer, we are hoping to reorganise and re-evaluate our mission here in the ‘Interior’ in the hope that we might be more effective in our service of the Gospel and the Amerindian people whom we serve. By September we will be joined by a Jesuit Scholastic, and a newly professed Jesuit Brother, plus another priest. We are hoping to renovate and re-equip a convent building at Aishalton, which was abandoned twenty years ago and discussions are taking place with a group of nuns in the hope that they will move in. Meanwhile, two Canadian laywomen missionaries will tend to the medical and social needs of the sick and elderly. They will also help with catechism classes and teach parenting skills and sewing. They will live for a time in the newly renovated convent.
One big problem we face is isolation. It is difficult to co-ordinate pastoral work because the distances between priests and workers is so great and the terrain difficult to negotiate. These issues are compounded by others factors such as the lack of electricity (only two villages in the whole of the area have electricity), no running water anywhere, no telephones and only one post office. We are hoping to install satellite e-mail systems in three of our centres: Kurukabaru, St Ignatius and Aishalton, just to keep us in touch with the outside world. By these means we hope to to able to encourage one another, reduce loneliness and plan and co-ordinate our pastoral work more effectively.
In the next few years we are hoping to have more assistance from our Jesuit brothers elsewhere in South America. We are in touch with Jesuits in north east Brazil and soon one of their number will be spending three months with us to learn English. In November, Fr Paul Martin and I will address the Jesuit Provincials of Latin America at their bi-annual conference to explain the needs of Guyana and invite them to send us a few men.
At a time of retrenchment elsewhere, we are beginning to expand - as foolish as that may seem - trusting, not in our own efforts or resources, but in the God who must ‘give the increase’ and bless all our endeavours. In this isolated corner of the Lord’s vineyard, we are carrying on the work begun a century ago by our Jesuit forebears, sharing our faith in the love of Christ - that faith which alone has the power to save.