The bumpy dirt roads to the jail were lined with mountain bikers on a Sunday fun ride. They wore colorful spandex uniforms, race numbers pinned to their jerseys, aboard thousand-dollar shiny new bikes moving at a leisurely pace. They were out of place in this sun-faded country village of tiny concrete houses, hammocks on the front porches, barefoot kids running around the dusty streets, skinny cows fenced in with wooden stakes and rusty wire. The bikers shared the roads with teams of armed prison guards and police, congregating in the shade of the trees. They were stopping cars, kicking up dust clouds when they braked, even before they reached the turn-off to the jail. They flagged us down with a wave and my taxi driver pulled over behind an old Honda with its doors and trunk wide open. The cops were ripping through it and even had a German Shepard on a leash sniffing around. We snapped to attention as he approached our window and I handed him my passport. He looked through my plastic bags of groceries, clothes, and books I had on the floor, then waved us on pleasantly and wished us a good day.
Horace, the bald-headed taxi driver from Huacas, gave me a great deal - $50 round trip to Liberia, including waiting for me. He dropped me off at the dead end in front of the jail. I immediately said “Oh shit,” and knew it would be a long day. There was a throng of people crowded around the lone jailhouse door, a heavy hunk of metal bars. As I walked up everyone looked at me. I guess I stood out, well, like a gringo at a third-world jail, but I knew the routine; at the registration window I gave them a name and they went down a list and wrote me in. I handed them my passport and got a little cardboard ticket with “D2B” written on it in marker. I hesitantly took my place in the back of the crowd, carrying my heavy bags. It usually wasn’t this packed, and almost all of the people waiting were women. What the hell was going on? Checking women in slowed down the process, just like at the restroom at a ballgame or concert, because there were more mechanics involved. Once you got your ticket you were supposed to get right through the front door, where you surrendered any items you were bringing in on a concrete fly-infested counter for search. A sweaty guard moving at a tectonic pace cuts open avocados and mangos to search inside, looks in the binding of books, and sticks a fork in plastic bowls of homemade Casadas, chicken with rice and beans. Then you move on, to the left if you’re a woman and to the right if you’re a dude, for a pat down. They search the women a lot more carefully because God made them with extra luggage compartments that are convenient for smuggling in contraband, and that slows down the whole line.
There were about 40 women waiting to get in, mothers and wives wearing church dresses and their best shoes, a few of them holding the hands of their little daughters and sons. There was no line, they all just pushed, jostled, and jockeyed for position to get closer to the door. It was 11:30 am on a Sunday in the tropics, and every minute under the direct sun seemed hotter than the next. The guards were only opening the door about every 15 minutes and letting a few women in at a time. When a visitor left the jail they could barely push their way through the crowd to get out, and the guards would let one more person in. By then there would be more showing up to take their place and start pushing at the back of the crowd. Ticas, Costa Rican women, usually don’t sweat a lot but their clothes started showing wet patches. At least I wasn’t the only one – I sweated like crazy every time I got near this place. They carried bags, boxes, and plastic tubs of home cooked food to bring in to their husbands and sons. The flies circles and landed on their foreheads, beaded with moisture, but they were packed in too tight to lift their hands and brush them away. That would only make them sweat more, and the flies would just come back and land again. So they just left them. An argument broke out when one mother stepped on another’s foot. Someone said “Hay Dios Mio” and made the sign of the cross. Every minute that went by their urgency grew and the mothers packed in tighter. Visiting hours were over at 1pm and it was almost noon, and by the looks of it not many people were getting in. One woman contorted her body to climb under a railing and cut the line, but the others pushed her out, leaving her stuck under the railing with her back bent at an impossible angle.
When the door didn’t open for a while the women became more agitated and yelled for the guards. An older Chinese couple paid off a guard and he opened up a side fence to let them in without waiting. That angered the wives and they cursed the guards about “Las Chinas.” Someone started yelling in desperation, then others joined in and soon they sounded like a pack of wounded animals. I looked at the high barbed-wire fences and guards with shotguns and thought about what would happen if the mothers reached a panicked frenzy. But just then a breeze blew, bending the ends of tree branches and sending the flies to flight, bringing a momentary chill to flesh under damp shirts. When the breeze blew it was a gift from heaven and the crowd let out a collective moan of relief. Attitudes relaxed and the pushing subsided. Someone told a joke and they all laughed and smiled. But within minutes the flies circled and the crowd was tense and pressing again. The guard asked who was next and they all started yelling and calling to him at once. I understood enough of what they were saying to figure out that they were trying to get in for their conjugal visits.
I waited in line for 45 minutes and got two steps closer to the door. I summoned enough broken Spanish to ask the guard behind the registration desk about what would happen if I didn’t get in in time. Could I get him my bags of stuff even after visiting hours? Yes I could, but I had to wait until visiting hours were over to drop them off. But how could I get the money in? That was a problem. Each prisoner is only allowed 30,000 Colones, or $60 US dollars, per week. Money was important because everything costs on the inside – to do laundry, to get phone cards, extra food, to buy phone time, and to get weed if that was your thing to make your time easier. When security was high the jail dried up and prices went way up. Of course handing any money to the guard and hoping he delivered it to the prisoner was ridiculous - they would pocket it every single time. If I didn’t get the money in he’d have to borrow money from other inmates to get through the week, but that’s a dangerous game to play. Not paying these guys back is not an option.
I decided the crowd was too crazy and I’d never make it in in time. So I stepped away and found Horace reading the sports page parked in a shady pasture. I figured I could go get lunch at a little soda and come back after one o’clock when everything quieted down. We pulled off but I immediately realized that I still had my passport at the jail. That was way too risky to leave behind; I’d be completely fucked – a foreigner in a strange land with no rights and no documentation – if something happened to it. So Horace swung the taxi around and dropped me off at the front of the jail to grab it. There must have had a miracle to part the Red Sea, because there were only a dozen women waiting and they were actually in some semblance of a line. It looked good to get in so I jumped back in with them.
Soon the heavy door swung open and the guard ushered the last of us in. They didn’t search my bags at the counter like usual, but stamped my arm with the appropriate cell number, D2B, day dos bay, when I handed them my ticket. They always told me not to let it sweat off or I wouldn’t be able to leave the jail. I still don’t know if they are kidding, and that only makes me sweat more. The guard patted me down and was cool - I only had to take out and show him my wallet before he let me through. Since it was so crowded and such a nice day with no indications of rain they’d set up wooden tables outdoors where they searched everyone’s bags. They went through my stuff and opened the tubes of Pringles, and made me open the can of nuts and pour them in a separate bag because the can was metal and could be crafted into a weapon. They have different rules and regulations each time. Sometimes they let me bring in shaving razors but not Cup-o-Soups - go figure. But they always make me take the plastic and paper packaging off of everything because the prisoners can roll them up and smoke them, getting high off the chemicals.
They give me the signal to walk on. I know where D2B is by now, and unfortunately it’s at the back of the whole prison complex. First I walk by the good behavior cells, little concrete bunkers with bars lining the lone window and door. The door is always open and the trustees mill about, smoking cigarettes and watching TV, or lounge around the fenced-in expanse of grass in back where they can hang their clothes on string lines and lift weights. They make weights by sticking metal poles in wet buckets of concrete, and then removing the buckets when it’s dry, producing perfect weights. They even have a rickety weight bench built out of wooden slats, but I wouldn’t trust that thing.
I walk up a long sidewalk cut through the grass, 4-meter tall barbed-wire fences on each side and a tin roof covering the top. The jail is in the middle of the country, dropped in the midst of lush green fields and intersected by a small river where you can see tadpoles and small fish by the hundreds. Every 200 meters there’s a guard checkpoint. They check the stamp on my arm. There are some guards who are cool, even friendly, and you can recognize some decency in their faces. Other guards wear mirrored sunglasses and don’t acknowledge me at all. Their shotguns are well oiled and rest at attention against their shoulders. They stare blankly at me as if they’d prefer to crack me on the head with their black wooden club than exchange pleasantries. I offer a head-nod and a “Hola senor, gracias, or como estas” to every guard. I want them to see that I’m showing respect and humility. This is their world - I don’t belong here and I know it.
I walk by a blue concrete soccer/basketball court with a covered patio roof. I’ve never seen anyone playing sports here, but several vendors are lined up to sell wooden jewelry boxes and colorful hand-sewn bracelets. The men working those stands don’t seem too interested in commerce – they all hang out together chatting and smoking cigarettes, their shirts lifted so their stomachs are exposed to the breeze. It strikes me as a very odd place to try and make a living, but maybe this isn’t the right time to give them business advice.
A little further along the path bends and it’s quiet again. An old man in a wheelchair always sits in this area. His eyes are yellow but hold some kindness. His fingers bend around a wrinkled paper cup with a few coins in it. But he doesn’t hold it out or ask for a tip as I pass. I don’t know who he is, or even if he’s a prisoner, but I always say hi politely and try to remember my “usted” conjugation instead of addressing him in the more familiar “tu”. It’s important for me to get it right, and I hope I did ok.
Then I walk around the corner and face the open expanse of the prison grounds where the cells are. This is the part I hate; the ritual that visits my nightmares in slow motion - why I can’t eat any breakfast on the mornings I come here.
There are cells on each side of me, like I’m on a college quad within the dorms. These are the “permanent inmates”, those who have gone through the judicial system and been sentenced and are serving their time. There is a long window on the back of each cell where inmates line up to view the outside world, and who is walking by on visitor’s day, through the bars. Each window is a puzzle of brown appendages like piano keys akimbo: tattooed muscled arms, dirty wife beaters, shocks of black hair. The prisoners are all young Costa Rican men, or rastas from Limon and the Caribbean coast, or Columbians, who are the heavy traffickers, or Nicaraguan illegal immigrants, who don’t look like much but are the real bad-asses because a lot of them were Sandinista guerillas. They cram into the windows and even sit up on the ledge with one leg hanging through the bars. As I walk by each cell window several of them try to get my attention. They yell and cajole and plead and whistle – anything to get the attention of those passing by, especially a gringo. “Gringo! Gringo,” “Hey man what’s up?!” “Hey Canada! Throw me a coin, man!” The rest of them just stare at me with “la table rasa,” – a blank slate, sizing me up. This is even scarier than the guys who are yelling.
I’ll admit that this is the part that intimidates me the most, horribly so. It shouldn’t, because logically the prisoners are behind bars and can’t get at me. And they aren’t threatening me or anything, but fuck it’s scary. Each unit contains a dozen individual cells, a courtyard with a chain-linked open-air roof, and a visiting room with concrete tables and benches. The cells were made for twenty-four inmates each, sleeping on wooden bunk beds and dirty foam rolls too thin to call mattresses, but because of overcrowding there are over fifty inmates in each cell. They are murders, rapists, and drug traffickers, all mixed in together. There are no medium security or cells for small-time criminals, or even solitary confinement or segregation cells for violent offenders or gang members; everyone is together, lifers and those serving six months. From what I’ve heard this is the second-best jail in all of Costa Rica, and I can’t even imagine what they look like in San Jose or Limon.
“Hey what’s up man!? Hey Gringo!” they whistle and call. What they really want is for me to throw coins over to them. When the guards aren’t looking visitors toss coins at the windows. The prisoners try to catch them, but most of them time they fall and hit the grass. The inmates spend all night trying to fish them back in with elaborate makeshift contraptions made of string, rolled paper, and anything else they can piece together. Why not? They have nothing else to do. They want 500 Colone coins because they are $1 each. When they yell I don’t know what to do. The first few times I came here I wore my big white sunglasses, but then I realized that I must look like a jerk, - like Jack Nickolson walking into a VA Hall meeting in Sweetwater, Kansas dressed for a Laker’s game. I used to just stare at the floor and keep walking but I can see myself through their eyes – white, pampered, soft, fat, rich, - and realize that the last thing I want to do is “Big Time” anyone, especially since I’m going to be coming here a lot. I have to look – I can’t just ignore them and be a snob every week. So I say wassup, give them the thumbs up, and try to bullshit long enough to get past their window. But as I walk on down the line the others in the next cell see me respond and they start yelling for my attention vigorously as well. I give them all the thumbs up and shaka signs with my hands, and tell them “Lo siento amigo - yo no tengo, pero proxima fin de semana!” – Sorry friend, I don’t have any coins, but next weekend.
I plan on bringing some 500 Colone coins for my next visit to toss at the windows. I’ve started a little collection of them on my nightstand. I assume that they don’t want me to throw the bullshit little coins, so I separate those out. But if I throw coins can I get in trouble? I’m sure they don’t allow visitors to throw any objects into the cells, and I’ve been told that you only do it when the guards aren’t looking. I’m worried that if I throw them and then the guards see me I might get in trouble. I don’t want trouble. They can strip search me, put me in a room and interrogate me, or maybe even throw me in jail. I don’t know, but any indiscretion could lead to a trumped-up charge. I’m sure I’m being paranoid, but paranoia serves you well in this place. But I can’t just big-time these guys, so I think I’ll throw some coins next weekend – it’s more important to have friends on the inside – not for me, but for him. Soon I am at D2B. I check the faded numbers on top of the barred unit door and show the guard my stamp. He opens it with a creak and lets me in before slamming and locking it behind me.
On the way out I go through the whole process in reverse. The prisoners yell again. They seem to be packed in the windows even tighter. I just have to get through it – 200 meters and then the worst is over. I try to walk alongside some mothers or women, hoping they divert their attention for a moment; maybe the prisoners want to look at a hot chick and whistle instead of yelling at me. How long would I last in here? What if it were me? That’s the question deep down that I can’t avoid. I give them a thumbs-up and tell them I have no coins but next weekend. All of the locked jailhouse doors open and close again as the guards release me. It feels better. I’m glad it’s over with and each step is a step towards being far away from this place. But I’m not a prisoner - I have nothing to worry about, right? Bullshit. Even visiting this place is a sentence.
I get around the turn to the long walkway and it’s mellow again, almost enjoyable. I pass the old man in the wheelchair and nod to him. He just looks through me with yellow eyes and smiles. I’ll have to bring him some coins next week It’s quiet once again and the fields and trees and streams behind the barbed-wire fences are beautiful. A young deer walks right up to the fence directly behind where a stony-faced guard sits. They must feed the deer because he’s always roaming around the same spot and pretty domesticated. I look at the deer but say nothing. My first time in here I was so amazed to see a deer that close that I tapped the guard on the shoulder and pointed it out to him – “Mira, mira un venadito,” – look, look, a baby deer! I think my voice went up three octaves in child-like wonderment. He just stared at me with disbelief that A) I had touched him and B) I could be softer than melted vanilla ice cream by pointing out a baby deer in a third world jail. In retrospect I tend to agree with him. What’s next? Skipping down the sidewalk as I catch butterflies and blow them over to the inmates? Jesus Christ Norm - toughen up a little. I vow to work on my jailhouse cred, in fact I’ll Google it as soon as I get home.
I make it to the main registration area and show them my stamp. It is faded but still recognizable – a victory. I get my passport back. Outside there are a few families milling about. Hector sits comfortably in the shade of a tree, talking to a few women he knows from Huacas. I apologize for taking so long but he says it’s cool. We jump in his cab and drive off, the windows rolled up until we get to the paved roads further in Liberia so the dust doesn’t overtake us. The race must be over because there are no more bikers on the roads.
Hector tells me why there was so much extra security that day. A mother came with her eleven-year old daughter to visit her husband in the jail. I imagine the daughter was excited to see her daddy but didn’t really understand why they were going to this place. She put on her best little church dress for him with a pink bow in her hair. Her mom put a bunch of coke in a condom, tied a hard knot in it, and put it in her vagina. On the way in her taxi driver knew she was carrying, and told her to be careful because there were drug-sniffing dogs. She went on anyways, and I assume she had no choice – her husband needed those drugs in there to sell to stay alive. They got out of the taxi and got in line with everyone else. Once they were behind the gates and saw the German Shepards her nerves betrayed her. She tried to duck out of the line but it was too late, there was no place to go. She was acting sketchy but the guards let her go anyway. She took a couple steps into the jail, thinking she had made it in safely, her daughter holding her hand. Then they called her back. The dogs were all over her and the guards grabbed her hard by the arms as she tried to look for an escape, but there was none. The daughter started crying and yelling for her mommy because she didn’t understand what was happening. They strip-searched the mom and found the drugs and threw her in a cell. She came to visit and ended up staying. They called child services and a social worker came and took the girl to a foster home. She came to see her father in jail and left without a mother, thrown into a jail for children herself.
Hector was chatty on the way back to Tamarindo. I was not. I rolled down the window and felt the wind on my face and my damp shirt started drying. He asked me if I wanted to stop for lunch in Villa Real somewhere. It was almost 2 o’clock and I hadn’t eaten anything that day, but I told him that I wasn’t hungry, and he understood. I just wanted to sit in silence and feel the wind. I wanted so badly to get back to the ocean and wash all of this off of me, to wade out and fall in backwards with eyes closed and arms outstretched, letting myself be pulled out by the waves.
A long time ago I saw some graffiti on the dirty streets of San Pedro, red spray paint on a concrete wall so profound and powerful that it stuck with me through the many years. It simply said “Soy nada.” – I am nothing. That’s it. As the wind hit my face I finally knew what they writer of that graffiti meant: I am nothing, I don’t exist. I am so small, so powerless, so inconsequential, my life so fragile and fleeting, that I don’t matter. I am nothing and I want nothing. Our voices will never be heard no matter how loud we yell. In this life there is no hope, there is no love, no loyalty, no peace, no meaning. We have nothing but coins without a fountain, and yet we still toss them skyward with a wish attached. Eleven years old - dogs barking and guards ripping her mother away, the sound of her crying and a pink bow falling to the ground. I wanted to throw her a coin and tell her that everything was OK, but of course that would be a lie.
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