El Infierno

by Pieter Tritton

  Every year at Christmas in the Peni, Isabel, in conjunction with the big agricultural company the ambassador owned, would bring each of the British prisoners a huge cooked turkey and a black plastic bin liner full of baked potatoes, 30 or 40 in each. This was almost an institution and the whole prison knew about it. I would usually make up 60 to 70 plates and give them out to all my friends on the wing. I would then cook up a massive pot of minestrone soup using the carcass, beans and potatoes. This used to feed dozens of us as well. I was hoping and praying that they would bring one in this year because the food here was so shit. I had promised everyone else, all five of them, that it would arrive and we would all have a feast. Expectation was growing by the day, along with our hunger.

  When I moved to the TB wing we had done our best to wash away the dust that coated everything. Dust, and particularly cement dust, which contains lime, is probably one of the worst things for a TB sufferer. It was making us all cough a great deal more than before. However, washing it just caused it to turn to cement and set everywhere. We complained to the guards and healthcare staff when they appeared but it fell on deaf ears. They said there was nothing they could do and that we would just have to clean the place. I asked to speak to the director of the prison but they told me there was no chance as he was so busy.

  I was now facing the wing where one half of the people from Atenuado Alto had been placed. Luckily for me there was a very good friend of mine directly in front, who was quite a big trafficker. He had already acquired a mobile phone, so I passed some messages to him and asked that he send them to family and friends in England, which he kindly did. This really helped me out. My family were relieved to get news of me as they had heard nothing since the move. I asked my friend if he could arrange a phone for me. He said he could but that they were expensive. His had cost him $1,500 and the guards who had brought it in were now constantly pestering him for extra money and threatening to betray him if he didn’t pay them. He said it was becoming more hassle than it was worth and he was considering giving it back and demanding his money be returned.

  The guards were really taking advantage of the situation and making as much money as they could as quickly as they could. Cabrones! Bastards! I asked my friend if he had managed to arrange to get any drugs in yet so that we could start business again. He was working on it but again the guards were demanding astronomical prices. He said there were people who had managed to get things in but it was hard and really dangerous. It was a minefield and one into which, for the moment, I wasn’t prepared to step. There was no point in me getting involved anyway as there were only a few people on the wing. I would wait until more people arrived so there was an actual demand, then attempt to take over the wing. At least for the moment I could start preparing by acquiring the necessary contacts to facilitate entry of the drugs.

  At the beginning of the second week on the TB wing we had a few new on one of the normal wings arrivals who were all placed in cells on the opposite side of the exercise yard to me. These new guys were typical troublemakers: street thieves and robbers constantly on the lookout for something to steal. They were a pain in the ass right from the very first day. In a bid to get their hands on drugs they would feign illness in order to make the guard take them to the clinic. Once there they would attempt to steal whatever pills they could grab. They were particularly looking for painkillers or sleeping pills, anything for a buzz. They had taken to crushing up the paracetamol and snorting them to try to get high. They would come out of their cells with loads of white powder falling from their noses. Things came to a head when large quantities of pills were stolen from the healthcare centre and the police were brought in to search the cells. They didn’t find them but after that they placed an officer on watch in the clinic all day every day.

  They took to hanging around the entrance gate to the wing trying to get food from the guards, who would always have extra portions and generally food of better quality. This little group had noticed that the guards quite often disposed of the surplus food from the evening meal in the rubbish in front of the wing office. They were so intent on salvaging this food that they would cut their arms and wrists badly enough to make them bleed and thus warrant a trip to the clinic to get stitches put in. On the way back they would quickly grab the bags containing the leftover food or convince the guards to give them some.

  Hunger really is a terrible thing and will make you go to almost any lengths to appease it. We were literally starved for the first three months of our time at the regional. The worst thing was that there was nothing we could do about it. We didn’t have shops where we could buy snacks or food to supplement what we were given. I have never been so hungry in all my life and will never forget the dreadful gnawing feeling that would keep you awake, constantly thinking about food. I would dream about eating and being in a sweet shop. I would sometimes wake up chewing and dribbling all over my pillow, thinking it was a delicious bar of chocolate. People would eat everything they were given. The bones from chickens, banana peels, orange peel, everything.

  In the previous prison, where my friends and I used to cook for ourselves a lot, I was aware that there was always someone hungry who would gratefully accept whatever we offered them. Hardly anything was ever thrown away or wasted. Whatever I had left I would always offer to someone in case they were hungry. It was rarely turned down.

  This little group of foragers would invent something new nearly every night, taking it in turns to be the sick man or casualty requiring treatment at the clinic. They realised it was better if they could feign an illness or injury that required the assistance of two or three others in order to carry the victim in a bed sheet. After a while the guards and healthcare team really began to tire of their antics and so the guards would pre-empt them by handing out any spare food to those they felt deserved it or needed it the most. This calmed the situation a little but they continued with the charades just for something to do and to get out of their cells for a bit. This really annoyed the guards as it wasted their and the healthcare staff’s time. It resulted in the guards ignoring cries for help as 95 per cent of the time it was a false alarm, ‘crying wolf’. And you know the moral of that story. This was a worry for the rest of us who were genuinely ill, as the guards wouldn’t come when called. There were a couple of occasions when people had become really quite sick and it took a long time before the guards realised it was a genuine emergency and came to assist. The cells had no call buttons or alarms, so the only way to get attention was to create a lot of noise by shouting and banging on the door until someone came.

  During the day, I did exercises to try to build my strength up again but it was almost impossible with the small amount of food we were being given. The social workers told us that there were plans to start educational courses very soon. They also planned to have workshops where we would be able to earn a small wage. They wanted to have prisons functioning like those in developed countries where you are able to make productive use of your time and hopefully move some way towards rehabilitation. For far too many years Ecuador’s prisons had become large holding facilities where people were merely warehoused until they were eventually released back into the community even more damaged and antisocial than when they went in. The new prison system aimed to change all of this and address the severe problems that had arisen with the old one.

  For the time being, until they had settled and housed everyone in the appropriate security zones, nothing much would be starting so we would have to just occupy our time as best we could. One thing that was causing a great deal of discontent was the lack of visits. Hardly anyone had received one. From the prisoner’s point of view, the most important things are visits, food and water, exercise and gym, communications, be it by phone or letters, and healthcare and safety. If you didn’t get this right you were in for trouble and unrest.

  There had already been protests by prisoners’ families along the road that ran in front of the prison. Family and friends of inmates would come to the r
oad and shout at the tops of their voices in order to speak to loved ones with whom they had been denied contact completely, in some cases for months. Tempers had flared and people burned rubber tyres and pelted the police with rocks and stones. The way in which we were being held incommunicado was causing a great deal of outrage and uproar in the country. It had been such a drastic change in circumstances and conditions that it had been a massive shock to most people. So severe had the shock been for some that they had taken their own lives. Added to that there had been over 20 murders in the first couple of weeks, a total of 35 deaths overall. It had been an unmitigated disaster all in all and the president was receiving a lot of criticism over the handling of the whole affair.

  An estimated 80 per cent of inmates were going through drug withdrawal symptoms. Those who were suffering the most were the people heavily addicted to heroin. Those who had been sniffing loads of coke or smoking crack 24/7 merely fell into a deep sleep for a week as the stimulants came out of their systems and the whole world slowed down to a standstill for them. It was the reverse for the heroin addicts. They went from having been somnolent zombies to wide-awake owls unable to sleep. There were people screaming, crying, shouting and pounding the gates day and night for assistance, but help came only after a long delay, and only then if the person in question was seriously ill or having a fit or seizure. The clinics were under siege. They had to set up camp beds outside. Each security zone had its own clinic but they just weren’t stocked and staffed yet and were completely unprepared for the vast problem of drug withdrawal they now faced. They didn’t have any medication they could administer to relieve the symptoms, so they had to rush orders through and wait a couple of days until they were delivered.

  No one had quite realised what a huge problem heroin had quietly become in the Peni. Both the main gangs were strictly opposed to selling the drug because they knew it would create all manner of problems and thus unwanted attention, bringing heat to them. It was only when the authorities began transferring the bosses and key gang members from all the wings that heroin began coming into the prison. Once the strict control of the gangs was removed there was no one to stand in the way of heroin’s relentless march.

  The authorities didn’t seem all that concerned at this point. Heroin was a relatively new drug to Ecuador and only became a problem once it was made widely available after its production and purification began in Colombia and Mexico. I had witnessed the heroin epidemic in Britain in the 1980s and even more so in the 1990s. Several of my friends had died from overdoses and related problems.

  I predicted that once heroin started moving south from Colombia and Mexico, Ecuador would suffer heavily with a high rate of addiction. Sure enough, the atmosphere changed in the prison with the increased use of heroin. It was ironic that after the gangs had been removed and broken up there was a sudden increase in the level of disorder, murders, robbery, assaults, shootings, stabbings, drug use and general criminality. The drug users in Ecuador thought heroin was like cocaine – you could have a heavy session and by the end of the next day you would be OK. They soon realised that wasn’t the case and before anyone knew what was happening there were masses of heroin addicts, with no treatment available, no clinics, no methadone, just one option for not getting sick, which was to take more and more of the brown powder.

  Now with a fresh start in the regional prison there weren’t many people who wanted to see heroin seep into the wings again, with everyone having just kicked the addiction. The gang bosses were in a sensitive position and didn’t need any problems or extra attention at this early stage, while they were re-establishing their business with so many eyes already watching for mistakes.

  The huge number of murders that took place in the first couple of weeks occurred in part because the authorities paid little or no attention to the gang affiliations of inmates as they arrived at the regional. Consequently, people were placed in the next available cell with whoever was waiting in line with them. This resulted in enemies and opposing gang members being accidentally placed in the same cells. There were five people to each cell on most wings. Imagine what happened when there were four members of one gang and an enemy from another gang was accidentally placed in with them.

  I wondered whether the prison authorities had mixed everyone up on purpose to get rid of a few gang members. It was very easy for them to claim it was an error, by which time of course it was too late. The director was relieved of his position after this fairly disastrous start to what was being heralded as the model of the newly modernised penal system. It wasn’t really his fault as the whole mess was just thrust upon him.

  It didn’t take long for the gangs to start re-establishing control and installing bosses in each of the wings. Los Choneros really came to the forefront now as they had been some of the first inmates in the prison and were becoming ever more powerful. They were basically in control of the entire prison, from what I was hearing. This was great as JL, the boss of Los Choneros, and his brother Carlos were really good friends of mine, so I would be well looked after if I made contact with them. Every time I was taken from my wing to the clinic friends of mine from Atenuado Alto would start chanting my name out of the windows until there was a regular cacophony. No one else received this kind of reception, not even Cubano, who was the boss of an entire gang. The guards would look at me, wondering just who it was they were escorting.

  There were a couple of really beautiful female guards who had previously worked in the Peni and were now working on my wing, both of whom I was very friendly with; but one in particular, Paula, now started to pay me quite a bit of extra attention. She was stunning with an amazing figure and a really kind personality. She would call me out to the wing office to chat and flirt and give me food, which I much appreciated. It was good fun and brightened my day. She would sometimes come to my cell door at night if she was on duty. I would be naked because of the heat and Paula would stand by the door for a while talking to me. It was great!

  Everyone had been waiting for the day the canteen shop finally opened so that we could taste something sweet again and get some proper food to eat. The authorities kept promising us if we behaved ourselves then they would open the shop. When they did eventually do it you had to have money in your private account, which was held by the director of the prison. You were limited to spending $50 in minimum security, $40 in medium, $30 in maximum and only $15 in supermax, per month.

  We soon worked out that if an inmate had no money coming into their account we could use some of their quota in the shop by paying money into their account. You could then purchase more goods once your quota was maxed out, which you’d split with the owner of the account. This worked for those of us with more to spend – because 30 or 40 dollars’ worth of food did not last a month – and for the account owner who would get a share of the items in payment for the use of their account.

  This also meant there was now currency again in the prison, which could be used for drug deals. It’s difficult to earn a buck, if there’s no bucks. The canteen shop also became a route for contraband to be smuggled in, and it didn’t take long for the dealers to find people willing to earn extra money to bring in a parcel. Weed and coke were the two main drugs that started coming in and the gangs were back in action.

  In the meantime, I was still stuck in the healthcare wing. On 23 December, over three weeks after our transfer, a couple of hundred people from the clinic at the Peni arrived. The turkey became a running joke among the small group of us who had arrived on the wing first. They kept asking me where the turkey was and I would reply it had flown off, to bitter laughter. I wasn’t laughing though and as Christmas approached I became depressed and anxious. I had had no contact with anyone apart from two messages and the one visit from Margarita.

  On 24 December I met up with my Estonian friend Enar. We agreed to see if we could arrange for Enar to be moved in with me so I had some company and someone to talk to. Changing cells here was not like it had been in the Peni wher
e you just moved where you pleased when you pleased within the wing. Here we would have to get permission from the wing coordinator, which was complicated. Enar’s name would have to be moved on the list, which meant reprogramming the details on the system. I went and enquired with the guards and they said they would see what they could do but that I really needed to talk to the coordinator personally to arrange this. Great! It looked like it would be a solitary Christmas. I told Enar and he said not to worry, we would do it as quick as possible.

  As the afternoon of Christmas Eve drew on I became more and more despondent. I hadn’t even been able to send a letter to my family wishing them happy Christmas, nothing. Dinner arrived early so that the guards could get us all locked away and go home to their families and friends to start celebrating. We on the other hand were given a ‘special’ Christmas Eve dinner consisting of a slice of turkey so thin I could see through it, a little bit of Russian salad – perhaps a teaspoonful – and, you guessed it, rice. Nothing sweet, not even on Christmas Eve, and it was back to my concrete box to be locked in for the night.

  I ate my dinner and lay down on my bed lost in my thoughts of my family, my dead mother and my friends. This would be the first year of my life that I had not been able to speak to my family on Christmas Eve. I felt terrible. I hated myself for having committed the crimes that had put me here in the first place, separating me from everyone I loved. I lay on my bed in that cell, on my own 5,000 miles from home, and I wept. I just couldn’t take it any more. I felt worthless, a complete and utter waste of DNA. I had failed everyone and become a disappointment and embarrassment to my family. My mother, aunt and cousin had all died in my time here, along with dozens of friends. If only I had not become involved with drugs perhaps my mother would still be alive. She would never see my or my sister’s children as neither of us had had any by the time she died. For the very first time in my life I began to contemplate ending it all by committing suicide. But these thoughts only lasted a minute or two, during which I remembered when my stepbrother had killed himself, followed by his cousin four weeks later. I recalled the devastating effect that had had on the rest of my family. My sister, Sarah, had recently had a little boy and images of my newly born nephew who I’d never met flashed before my eyes and I knew I could never be so selfish as to kill myself.