Have you ever really considered how different circumstances and different social situations awaken different sides of your personality? Every day we immerse ourselves amongst society’s norm, we wear multiple masks that define us for that given moment in time. Our thoughts, our actions, our words, our movements: we allow ourselves to conform to whatever the given social group expects from us.. whether it be the leader mask, the courageous mask, the studious mask, the parental mask, the child-like mask... the list goes on.
I have had to recount this story a billion times since returning home. It’s become a source of gossip. It’s gained an air of hype and hysteria, a platform from which the story twists and turns every time it is recounted. Everyone comes up with their own version of events to fit their own fantasy. I just want to say this from the start- it isn’t a myth, it isn’t a fantastical story. This is the living reality of millions of women and men today. The lessons I learned will hopefully stay with me and guide me through the various and inevitable tributaries of life. I cried a lot. I learned a lot. I learnt about the varying considerations of what is and isn’t socially acceptable in different cultures, about how different people react to and live in a small and confined space, about how different personalities react to unfortunate circumstance, how universal comedy tastes are, how different people react to and establish authority within social groups. Most importantly I think, I realised how resilient human nature is to disaster.
It will probably shock most people to know that in Ayacucho prison alone, there were 5 other white women: two Americans, one Belgian and two Australians. When white people get caught up in foreign legal affairs, like the fictional character Bridget Jones for example, quite often it gets documented enough to propel the story onto a world stage. But more often, it doesn’t. If that person has no-one that would recognise their absence, there’s nothing that person can do to negate his/her sentence.
The men wolf-whistle every time you walk past. They grab, they spit, they lick, they masturbate... vile is the only way I can think to describe them. But the women and the men’s prisons are interlinked so that when a woman needs to see a lawyer or a visitor or the social worker or make her way to the kitchens- she must face walking through that animal cage, one of which she is prisoner, on show to be taken advantage of by the audience.
The 8x8ft rooms consist of two bunk-beds, precariously balanced one on top of the other. There are stained sheets hanging down for you to pull across for your own privacy. Other than that, there is a 1x1ft hole in the middle of the room (or the “casita” as the children call it) into which one can defecate. Gates lock at 19:00hrs, lights out at 21:00. If you’re lucky or rich, one is fortunate enough to have a window to the cell, which allows natural light and oxygen to air out the dark, damp and dank room. This is the delightful home of some 750 Peruvian women for the next 25 years of their lives. The rooms encompass a large outdoor quad area where the women can gossip, scheme, work, exercise, play with their children, cook and play games.
They need to look at why these women are in prison; what the core root of the problem is. If my investigation results are right (and I am by no means claiming that they are, but there are no records to certify the exact cause for all women’s sentencing) more than ninety percent of the women inside Ayacucho Prison were there for drug smuggling crimes. I interviewed many of these women, asking the simple, but loaded, question- “Why?” Why smuggle drugs when they know the repercussions are so severe, if caught. The question was always met by the same amused and slightly condescending smiles: “Because already we were prisoners of poverty. We had nothing to lose. At least here we have a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in at night.”
Nice and light.
Peace out. Hasta luego. Ciao. In a bit
Harriet xx
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