San Pedro Prison

What a day. A day to feel like Johnny Cash performing in prison, only without the actual performance. Having read about this mad prison in the middle of La Paz, a prison with no guards, uniforms or official order, we decided we had to go and visit the place whatever it took. So we flashed our most useful BBC passes at moustachioed guards for a few days and were promised by a guy (who seemed completely bonkers) that we´d be able to go for a visit today at 11am. We presented documents, desires, and all they asked for, and turned up this morning outside the prison. Inside, we could see rough looking blokes queuing nervously at the gate. It was visiting day. Chollas, the ladies with bowler hats I mentioned in a previous blogué, waited outside with snotty children, and at their feet packages of fruit, veggies, cake boxes and other goodies waited to be sacrificed to the hungry prisoners. They were looking at us intently and I was starting to regret my curiosity. Who in the hell wants to visit a prison? But it was too late. Our Bolivian attendant, a low official with a handlebar moustache and darkened glasses, approached and escorted us through the gate. Our passports were taken by green-uniformed guards (they are called ´Avocados´in the prison jargon) and I thought that this might be it. We too might be sacrificed like the veggies and the cakes. A pair of gringos with expensive equipment. What more could you want for bargaining advantage?

Inside, the place looked like a little town. The prison is divided into 8 areas, all named and centred around a patio, with small balconies where geezers played poker and whatever else, whilst checking out the goings on below. You see, in this prison, as I said, there are no guards. Everything is decided and controlled by the prisoners themselves, who elect their leaders and have unions. There are no uniforms and families are allowed in every day to hang out with their husbands/fathers/uncles, whatever, and many women come to cook at the stands. The prisoners have to rent their own cells, or buy them, and some cost as much as 150 dollars a month, depending on how de luxe they are. So the prisoners have to work whilst inside, to pay for their cells and food and clothes. They work as cooks, carpenters, they sell sweets and whatever else and that´s how they make their living.
Richer prisoners have large cells, pads really, with cable TV and all the lovely things. Others, like the cell of a man we visited, have a 1x1 metre cell, with a bed, cooker and mirror. A bit like a room I once rented in Harlesden, really, as a student. I felt for the guy. His walls were covered in rose bloom wallpaper, with ´Florita Durango 7122543´ penned on it in small writing. A lady friend, so delicate next to the roses. The ceiling was plastered with a hundred time replica of a cowboy hat and ´Minnesotta´ on it. He was in for drug smuggling, cocaine, like 90% of the prisoners. He seemed to think he was innocent and seemed like a nice guy, really. We wished him luck and left him to his cell.

Downstairs, a proper loonie started offering his wisdom and asking money for it. Rafa got him to tell us his story. His face looked like a swollen potato with a wig. His nose was squashed and I swear had white coke rings on the edges of his nostrils. He was in for murder, he said. We gulped in unison. He then started talking about justicia, and how he needs to be free, and did some marvellous dancing when Rafa snapped him on the camera. All the other prisoners laughed their heads off when he started posing like a professional model, and our guide whispered in my ear: ´He´s drunk´. No kidding. He´s mad, more likely, and high as a kite.

We met a South African guy, softly spoken and gentle seeming. He said his was a long story, but that he´d messed around with trafficking and paf! he was arrested. I guess that´s what most people´s stories are like in San Pedro.

What was really sad was the fact that children live there, with their arrested parents. They live inside and go out to school, where they are discriminated against, as is to be expected. They are also in danger inside the prison. Apparently girls get molested and the poor little things live in constant fear. They were sweet, playing there, all snotty and unkempt, with red cheeks and black, marble eyes. There are two creches inside, and a kindergarten too.

Visits for tourists were once a big business for the prisoners, but they are now forbidden. Apparently, the tourists, or gringos as we are otherwise known here, got into the high quality cocaine that is sold and snorted in great quantities inside San Pedro. They were coming in on tours and buying the drugs, which the guards and officials somehow worked out and now you can only visit if you have a mate inside, or you´re a journalist.

One of the guys sold us his ´Prison Manual´which has a collection of prison jargon: a mixture of Argentine Lunfardo and street jargon called Coba (the explanation reads: The Coba jargon was compiled by the International Delinquent Expert, alias the Pecos, the international Boy of the heavy Signature ´The Gallant´ - very cool stuff). Just a couple of quotations of the words:
1. Uniformed policemen (as I wrote before) - Avocados (I assume this is because they wear green uniforms), Marios;
2. Street thieves - Callejeros (calle-street in Spanish), Palomillos, Pandilleros;
3. Bus thieves - Carreros;
4. Hat thieves - Cumbreros Cachucheros (the bowler hats that the women wear are mightily pricey for Bolivian standards, second-head can be flogged for as much as 80 dollars - I reckon a Cumbrero is a perversion of Sombrero - any suggestions?)
5. Bank - Coban (Banco - a bit like our Satrovacki in the former Yugoslavia, where syllables are switched)
6. (my favourite, it´s so silly) Trousers - Tolan Lompa (Pantalones, kind of mixed up)
They also have words to mean wallet, pocket (trouser, jacket, skirt) and so on, which the author explained, serves as a little technique for communication between themselves when they are pickpocketing people, so that policemen or anyone else can´t understand. Smart, eh?

Anyway, we were glad to get out into the relatively safer world outside, where a tramp was retching into a gutter, around the corner from the prison. It kind of complemented the whole atmosphere.

I forgot, Rafa and I played chess during the many hours of waiting for our visiting permit. I tried to call on my fellow Slav Gary Kasparov´s spirit, but to no avail. I lost the first game, but was about to check-mate Rafa when our permits arrived. Just thought I´d let you know that now we are chess nerds for a few days, till we get bored with concentrating.

Thank you Marcelo, for posting a comment on the blogg. I appreciate it, since more and more, every day I feel more and more lonely on me blogg, when I see the sad 0 comments below my writing. Sob, sob.