Codrington College and Chanko the Cat

Many of the wonderful people we have met through our photographic endeavors have mentioned that they studied, at some point, at Codrington College- a theological institution located in the St. John parish on the island. Codrington College is an Anglican theological college and was founded with funds from the bequest of Christopher Codrington, who after his death in 1710 left portions of his sugar cane estates to establish a college in Barbados. Construction was started in 1714, and the college was eventually opened in 1745.

Today, it houses 17 resident students that are preparing to be ordained priests. As we arrived on campus this morning, we met one of the students who kindly gave us a tour and answered all of my endless questions about the college, his experience there, and his goals as a future minister. The students come from all over the Caribbean to study theology at Codrington, our gracious tour guide is from Belize and informed us that his classmates come from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Virgin Islands, and Turks and Caicos just to name a few. I had no idea that so many people would come to Barbados just to study theology, but our guide said that Codrington is known all over the Caribbean and the UK as a wonderful college for aspiring priests and ministers to study at. Also, as we headed down the front steps of the college, a small cat came running up to us and let us pet it:) Our guide said that the cat's name is Chanko and that he is the resident pet at the college. (P.S- we've been missing Coco terribly!) Any college that has a pet cat must be a wonderful college indeed!

I thought that maybe by the end of this trip that I would get tired of going to the beach... but it hasn't happened yet!