Locked up abroad…

If anyone has seen the show “Locked up abroad” on TV, then you will have an idea of what the past couple of days have been like. Thursday, I went to the prison here in Ayacucho to spend time with the women that are locked up for drug trafficking. I can’t really explain what it’s like other than absolutely wretched. Most of the women who are imprisoned there were caught carrying cocaine. Typically, we think “how stupid do you have to be?” but these women are all victims of an impossible situation. They live in a country where the economy is kept afloat by the drug industry, they are, in most cases, very poor and have little to no way of supporting their children. In a desperate attempt to support their families they agree to carry cocaine from point A to point B for as little as S.100 (approx. $30). In most cases, they never make it to point B and instead find themselves facing a 15 year sentence. The prisons here work a little differently than those in the States in that the women still have to find a way to make money to support themselves while locked up. They are responsible for their own food, clothes, soap, etc. The worst part is that, if these women have children, they live in the prison with them until the age 4. Once the children turn 4 years old, the authorities come in and literally rip them from the mother’s arms. The kids will sometimes go live with family but are often sent to the orphanage as their fathers are likely locked up as well. So Thursday I woke up and found myself walking the halls of the prison having just gotten to second base with a female guard who was checking me for God knows what. I had to walk through the male section of the prison to get to my destination and you can only imagine what kind of comments a short, blond woman received walking through those halls. Luckily, it was all in Spanish so I don’t have to actually know what they were yelling. The day was as inspirational as it was sad. I met a woman names Roxanna who is locked up because her drug dealing husband left her in a house full of Cocaine. He, of course, ran off with her 3 older children when she got sent to prison in his stead. Along with her came her 3 year old son and to top things off, she’s pregnant. She is making as much money as she can knitting scarves and socks that are sold in town. However, as a new prisoner, she hasn’t really learned the tricks of the trade yet and is having some trouble making enough to support herself and her son. As I’m leaving tomorrow, I don’t have time to place an order with her but I am going to talk with the staff here at CCS and see if I can put in a mail order for a few scarves. They cost S.15 (about $5) each and I’m sure that an order of 3 or 4 scarves would keep her comfortable for at least a few weeks. In addition to Roxanna, I met Carmen. She’s 33 years old and has been in jail for almost 10 years. She has used her time in prison to really get her life together. Not only has she taught herself a good amount of English, but through correspondence courses, she has put herself through law school. All she needs to do is pass the Peruvian equivalent of the Bar exam when she gets out and she will be able to practice law and fight for women like herself who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s truly unbelievable what these women are going through and walking through their 15x15 ft. cells (which sleep up to 10), my eyes were really opened to an impossible situation. I wish I could stay on in Peru a while longer and work exclusively with the women. If I come back, I know exactly where I need to go.