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.