Читать книгу Still Standing - Anaité Alvarado - Страница 12

El Centro de Detención Preventiva para Mujeres Santa Teresa

Week One

I arrived at Santa Teresa Women’s Correctional Facility in Guatemala City on Wednesday, January 6, 2016, slightly past midnight. After less than twenty-four hours in jail, I had already accumulated a wealth of new experiences that I was anxious to share with the outside world, but my brain was a wreck and my heart so broken that I sometimes felt like I couldn’t even breathe. Every time I thought of my two lovely, innocent children, I broke down and cried.

The road from the courthouse’s carceleta in Guatemala City to Santa Teresa was dark and unknown to me, and the prison was darker still. A dim light bulb here and there made my eyes struggle to see. Handcuffed and guarded, we stepped out of the gray pickup truck and descended many steps toward the prison. My first memory will probably always be the terrible stench from cat urine overpowering my senses as soon as we entered the warden’s office area. I felt like I was being buried alive.

The check-in process is still a blur to me. I was asked about my academic background, about the reason for my imprisonment, and was assigned to Cellblock One. The word was that I was lucky to have been placed in that cellblock, but I couldn’t fathom it. I was registered as inmate number 104, in a block originally designed for an estimated sixty-four women, with thirty-two bunk beds. Needless to say, this situation forced us to sleep in unconventional ways. At 1:30 a.m., I walked into a dark cellblock, lit only by a colorful Christmas tree and the traditional Guatemalan crèche.

After the guards locked the gates behind me, I was welcomed by Mimi, whom I would soon learn was the cellblock’s voice. It is common for new inmates to arrive at the prison late at night, so Mimi was used to this situation. When I say Mimi welcomed me, I literally mean she welcomed me to share her twin bed. I was overcome by such exhaustion after spending twelve hours in the carceleta, that I didn’t think twice about my newfound situation and simply crawled into bed next to this big woman, who generously let me have one-third of the space on her sleeping bunk and even lent me a blanket. Before long, I fell asleep.

I did wake up several times during the night, a bit disoriented, but fully aware of my circumstances; having no watch, and therefore no way of knowing what time it was, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. At 4 a.m., I was startled awake by a bell, like the ones you may hear in schools or firehouses. However, this was no school recess or fire emergency. This is what they call an inmate count or head count. I quickly learned this was to be part of my new daily prison routine. When that bell rang at 4 a.m., every last one of us had to get out of our beds, line up in a predetermined manner in the main cellblock hall, and wait for the prison warden and her lieutenants to complete the 104-inmate head count. After the officers locked the gates behind them and were on their way to count inmates in the other cellblocks, we were finally allowed to go back to bed. I also learned that on Saturdays and Sundays our head count was mercifully moved to 6 a.m., giving us two extra hours before we were rattled awake to have our presence confirmed.

Inmates must be up by 9 a.m. and taking a shower is mandatory. The queue is long and the water cold. One shower curtain covers two showers with no showerheads, but most inmates shower one at a time. Some inmates shower in pairs to save time, but that is optional. Since showering there was not a pleasant ordeal, few inmates took their time. There is also a pila (a basin) where you can wash yourself in the open, but as I found out throughout the day, the pila is also used to wash hands, brush teeth, and scrub dishes and clothes.

Since I had nothing but the clothes I had chosen for my court hearing the day before and my father’s jacket, I thought I’d have to skip my shower that morning, but several women came to my rescue. One lent me a small towel and a packet of shampoo and conditioner, but I did not have to use them because Mimi lent me a larger towel and her dandruff shampoo. I was not ready to wash my hair in that cold water, so I used the shampoo to wash my body. I was a champion at my two first traumatic events: sleeping and bathing.

I spent the rest of the day learning the ropes. There were six toilet stalls in my cellblock and, per Mimi’s orders, I was to use toilet stall number three. The toilet handles did not work, so one had to pour water from a huge bucket into the toilet bowl to flush it. To my surprise, the system worked well. No doors were allowed, so curtains were used for privacy. Curtains were also used to mark each separate bunk area. They were all uniform curtains, paid for by the inmates, and were changed every three to four months. The ones hanging during my stay were satiny and pink, which made the cellblock look like a cheap brothel. Regardless of looks, the privacy they brought was greatly appreciated.

Even though my first day in prison was not officially a visitor’s day, my father managed to stop by to check on me and see how I was holding up. In addition to giving me his love and words of wisdom, he also told me to find an apparently well-known inmate named Lili. Later, while searching for her to introduce myself, I learned that the stories about her power were legendary, and many inmates even feared her. Our meeting was brief, but I accomplished the mission my dad had given me.

Before he left, my father also made sure to give me some money. The prison system provides inmates with nothing, and you can’t survive your prison sentence without money, no matter how long or short it may be. I had to pay Mimi seven dollars for some sort of cellblock entrance fee, seventy cents per week for a so-called communal account, and fourteen cents for weekly bathroom cleanup. There was a well-established prison economy and rules for just about everything; if you broke them, you got a punishment referred to as plancha (same word used for our concrete beds) where you had to clean the entire cellblock for a full day. This included sweeping and mopping before dawn, at noon, and at 5 p.m., and buying all the needed cleaning supplies with your own money. You were allowed to pay someone else to do it, but it would cost an estimated ten dollars, which was considered a small fortune in Santa Teresa. Water bottles cost seventy cents each and there were several food stands to purchase lunch, although I wasn’t prepared to trust my luck with any of them. The prison system provided inmates three inedible meals per day, a food service commonly referred to as “Rancho,” so access to any other type of food was priceless.

Rancho food came into the prison several times per day, in huge plastic barrels or buckets. According to prison rumors, Rancho suppliers were paid per meal per inmate per day, yet only a small fraction of it was spent on the food. Some inmates also believed that this is part of the reason why inmates are kept in prison beyond their sentences, to continue getting paid per inmate. I do not know if this is true, but it makes some sense. Inmates also claimed that Rancho food was much better not long ago, but that the contract had since been awarded to someone else. I wonder who the players are. Prisons must be a big business for somebody.

There was no cafeteria, so Rancho food was distributed at each cellblock three times per day. Inmates had to have their own plastic plates and cutlery since the prison did not offer any. Bread or machine-made tortillas were a staple, along with black beans, which many inmates wash, drain, and recook, adding their own spices to make them edible. Vegetables were a rare commodity, and when they were available, usually included plantains, potatoes, chayote, and zucchini. Sometimes a ham and spinach concoction was served that I mistook for pasta when I first saw it. Sundays were usually cereal and banana days. Sometimes coffee was available, delivered in a huge transparent plastic bag, and was so weak that it could easily be mistaken for iced tea. A prized lunch came on Wednesdays when plain boiled chicken was served. The women would rinse it and finish cooking it properly by adding their own spices, onions, and other vegetables, which were available for purchase inside the prison. Some inmates had permits for their own individual electric burners, and there were two communal burners available for the rest of us. As with everything else, you had to wait in line.

Cellblock gates were opened between 9 and 10 a.m. and inmates were allowed to wander around until noon. There were many women and not much to do. Inmates were locked in again from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Final daily lockdown happened at 4:30 p.m. This meant that enjoying the night sky was forbidden.

There was one public telephone in my cellblock and official Guatemalan Penitentiary System Calling Cards had to be used. Calling cards could be purchased from Mimi, but they cost twenty percent more than stated on the card, which was the fee she charged and most likely went straight to her pocket. I was warned to be very careful about one’s calling card number because if another inmate should see it, she would use your minutes before you did. There was a system to call and a woman named Enma was in charge of the calling queue at that time. I put my name in at 8:40 a.m.; however, the day rolled on and by 4:50 p.m. I still hadn’t been able to make my call. This new prison reality had me completely disconnected from the outside world.

To keep busy that afternoon, I set out in search of a book, another rare commodity in this prison. I had been told there was a library of sorts at the prison school, but books could only be used by official students and they couldn’t be checked out. I was then directed to the Social Services office, and to my surprise, the prison’s social worker, Marta, had begun a small project she liked to call “The Reading Corner.” She had managed to get hold of close to thirty books. The options were limited, but there were about ten novels and Marta happily let me borrow one. I chose Amor, by Isabel Allende. My quest was over. I had a book—but a book I was unable to dig into like I usually did due to a newly acquired lack of concentration on my part—so I set out to visit Carmen, the woman I had met months earlier during my overnight stint in the carceleta. On the day she’d been sent to this prison back in September, I never imagined that I would be looking for her a few months later, in search of the only familiar face in this new world I was thrown into.

I found her in a section of the prison called encamamiento, a former prison hospital that was now the designated cellblock for inmates whom a judge had deemed unfit to live within the general prison population. The reasons for being placed in encamamiento varied, but usually they had to do with inmate health or safety. Carmen remembered me. We spoke for a little while and I thanked her for her generosity during our first encounter in the carceleta, but she did not seem very happy to see me. That shouldn’t have come as a surprise. We barely knew each other, and I had already been advised by Mimi of one clear prison rule: one did not make or have friends in prison. We were all in that dark hole together, doing the best we could while trying to survive. That became the most important thing: survival.

In my efforts to make myself useful, busy my mind, and survive, I visited the labor department to offer my services as an English teacher at the prison school. María, the woman in charge, was very pleased with my offer and asked me to come to a special meeting the next day at 10 a.m.

As I observed how my new prison society worked, I realized there were several unofficial jobs available for inmates. One such position was an inmate caller. Callers received no pay, but many visitors tipped them or gave them a little thank-you gift for locating the inmate in question. That afternoon one of these callers came looking for me to tell me I had a visitor. I went to the prison’s inmate gates and found Emilio, an attorney and member of my extended family, waiting for me. He had stopped by to visit a client, but also wanted to check up on me, thinking I might appreciate a familiar face and a break.

I was let out through the inmate gates, the normal practice when an attorney visits an inmate, and sat waiting for Emilio to finish his professional visit. To my surprise, in that moment, my brother-in-law Ed, his wife, Vania, and their friend Yvethe walked into the visiting room. Since Vania and Yvethe are both attorneys, they were allowed to visit me outside of regular visiting hours, while Ed posed as their assistant. They were all carrying supplies: a pillow, two blankets, pants, T-shirts, sweatshirts, Crocs, bathroom items, a towel, toilet paper, money, bread, and some extra goodies. I also received two boxes of cereal courtesy of another dear friend, and six new undies courtesy of an angel I had never met from Vania’s office. Once Emilio finished with his client, he joined us, and we took advantage of his expertise as a former Vice Minister of the Interior, a position that put him in charge of prisons, to make a list of other things I might need. Their visit and the plentiful supplies were all a godsend on such a bleak day.

When I finally returned to my cellblock, I found that Mimi had assigned me new living quarters. I was to move into a bunk bed area (also referred to as plancha, the same word inmates use for punishments) with Clara, Mimi’s maid and assistant. Mimi considered it a safe place for me, but there were already three women sleeping there: fifty-three-year-old Clara had the top bed; twenty-seven-year-old Verónica had the lower bed; and thirty-seven-year-old Mariana, a foreigner who had arrived a couple of days earlier than me, slept on the floor. Since the weather had recently turned cold, Mariana had begun sleeping with Verónica on her bed. However, with my addition to the group, it was decided that I was to sleep with Verónica, and Mariana would return to the floor. I felt bad for Mariana, but maybe having the floor to oneself was better than a small cement bunk bed for two. So far, they all seemed like nice women, each going through tough times and experiencing indescribable pain. As my first day in prison came to a close, I realized that some of these women, whom we may normally fear in the outside world due to their crimes, had been nothing but helpful and supportive to me so far.

At 5 p.m., right after we were required to return to our cellblocks for lockdown, I climbed onto Clara’s upper bunk hoping to read for a while. It was Día de los Reyes (Three Kings’ Day) and a celebration was underway, but all I wanted to do was dive into a fictional world and disappear. As I opened my book, I was suddenly overcome by sadness and tears started rolling down my cheeks. I thought I would cry for a while, let it all out, and then try to read again, but the tears didn’t quit. It was all too much. This new reality, the thought of Nina and Fabián without a father and now missing their mother, how I was aching to kiss and hug them, not knowing how long this nightmare would last . . . it devastated me. While the party, loud music, games, and jokes grew louder, I felt worse and worse, incessant tears turning into a full-fledged anxiety attack. So, I climbed down from the bed, headed toward the cellblock entrance gates, and sat down, concentrating on regulating my breath. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by several women who came over, sat next to me, and coached me through deep breaths to calm me down, while inside I just wanted to die . . . anything to get out of that place.

I finally managed to calm down and swiftly became aware of the chill in the air coming in through the entrance’s open bars. As I stood up and walked to my room, the music was at full blast, burning incense filled the cellblock, and baby Jesus was brought in by “The Three Wise Men.” I climbed into my part of the lower bunk bed and, exhausted, at long last fell asleep. It was 7:30 p.m. The party lasted until midnight and I slept right through it. I think I asked God to let me sleep forever that night.

—

As the days of my first week in prison proceeded, I slowly fell into the prison routine. Four a.m. head count, sleep a few more hours, get up, wait in line for a freezing shower, add my name to the phone call list, and busy myself as best I could to endure another day without freedom. On weekdays, Mimi let us watch local television channels from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., the general preference being the news and soap operas. Our cellblock’s go-to series on one of the TVs was El Señor de los Cielos, a Mexican series about an infamous drug trafficker that had many on the edge of their seats. Later, from 10 p.m. to midnight, a nightly religious vigil was held inside the cellblock near the main entrance. The women would pray and sing, filling the night’s silence with a bit of joy. It was quite beautiful.

On my second morning, I was called to the warden’s office, where I was officially registered as a prisoner. From now on, if anyone inquired about my criminal record, it would show that I was an inmate in Santa Teresa. With wet hair, no makeup, and enlarged eyes from crying the night before, I was fingerprinted and then told to stand against a height chart with my inmate number in hand while my picture was taken. I was now an official inmate.

My new roommate Mariana was also being registered that morning. As we got to talking, I learned that she had come here like the rest of us, with nothing but the clothes on her back, while her fifteen-year-old son had also been taken into custody. Mariana was a foreigner, had no family in Guatemala, no money, and no way to contact her child. She told me she had been living in Guatemala with her partner and her fifteen-year-old son from another marriage. She claimed that her partner had gone out to buy sodas on December 31, and had never returned; his burned body turned up on the property where they lived on January 1. The next day, the police came to take her and her son away, charging them with the man’s murder, based on a neighbor’s statement claiming that the couple fought a lot. After having experienced firsthand how the Attorney General’s Office had come after me, I was now readily inclined to believe an inmate rather than our own attorney general. Little did I know how many more similar heart-wrenching stories I would hear during my stay in prison. It changed my life forever.

Later that day, as I roamed around the prison compound, I bumped into a young, tall American woman whom I had noticed the day before. “Are you Anaité?” she asked, and I nodded. “I have a message from a fellow Rotary member who asked me to find you and let you know that everyone is in disbelief and outraged by what they are doing to you!” She introduced herself as Ashley Williams and even though she was not an inmate in Santa Teresa, she spent most of her time here because she ran a screen-printing company (Serigrafía) inside the prison. Ashley didn’t remember the person’s name, but her message brought me joy. I spent the rest of the afternoon at Serigrafía chatting away with Ashley, who told me I was welcome there anytime I wanted to sit down, read, write, or relax.

Serigrafía is located in the same section of the prison that houses Social Services, encamamiento, the infirmary, and the inmate maternity ward. The general prison population, which includes me, does not have access to that area, but I had received authorization from Lili from encamamiento and now Ashley from Serigrafía, so I was the exception to the rule.