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Published: October 23rd 2010
Me
He even drew the picture on my t-shirt (although in his version, only three Beatles are crossing Abbey Road. Maybe he believes the Paul being dead stories?)Our Very Own ¨Marching Powder¨(Or Lack Thereof)
Before leaving Australia, both the Boss and I had read “Marching Powder” by Rusty Young. It’s the true story of Thomas McFadden, an Englishman who was incarcerated in La Paz’s San Pedro Prison in the late 90’s for attempting to smuggle a few kilograms of cocaine out of the country. Like no other prison in the world, prisoners are made to purchase their cells, can buy other cells and rent them out to other inmates or use them to open a store or restaurant. Prisoners’ families are allowed to live with them in the prison and as of the late 90’s, whilst Thomas McFadden was still an inmate, tourists are allowed to tour the prison.
We had asked around and the going rate to book a tour of San Pedro Prison was B$400 each. We ended up booking with a tour agency on Sagarnaga for the going rate. Miguel, our travel agent, filled in our receipt but rather than write “San Pedro Prison” on the receipt, he wrote “walking tour”. “It’s illegal to visit the prison,” he explained.
We were told that someone would come to our hostel at 6:30 or 7 that evening
The Boss
As drawn by Harold Guzman to explain to us the procedures of the visit, including what we would have to say to the guards to get in because, since tours were illegal, we were officially going to be there as a prisoner’s visitors. We left the tour agency feeling slightly sketchy about having just parted ways with B$800 for a piece of paper that said “walking tour” and a promise. They really had all the cards - it’s not like we could go to the tourism police and report them - the tour was illegal.
The next morning, with no one having turned up to explain the procedures the night before, we went back to the tour agency at 9, the tour due to start at 10. The agency was closed and we became really concerned. We returned to the Cactus and there we were told that someone would be by at 10 to pick us up and take us to the prison. Sure enough, at 10:15 (roughly on time Bolivian style) a gentleman named Oscar arrived at the hostel and walked us the 10 or so minutes to the prison.
We were met by a woman who took us through the prison’s metal detector
My Arm
They looked deep in to my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined... (when the change in my pocket didn’t set it off, I was convinced it was for show) in to an office in the prison. We waited there for a few minutes before being ushered through the main gates where about a dozen or so men were standing calling out to the guards and people on the street. One of the men stepped forward and introduced himself in English.
Gabriel was 32 with a youthful face and combed back hair in an attempt to disguise the fact that he was going bald. He had previously spent 4 years in a Californian prison for smuggling cocaine - busted by the FBI with 4kgs of it strapped to his tyres. He said the first three months of his time in prison had been in a hospital, such was the severity of the beating they gave him. After getting out of prison in the states he had been deported back to his home country of Bolivia. He had served 15 months of an 18 month sentence in San Pedro for theft. The nature of the justice system in Bolivia was such that if he had had US$5000 he could have bribed his way out
The front gates
Taken on the 26th of the whole sentence - he told us of one inmate who murdered two people but with $50,000 bribed himself in to a 90 day sentence. Without the sufficient funds for that kind of “justice”, his lawyer had told him to take the 18 months because a sentence of that amount of time leads to no conviction being recorded.
Standing with Gabriel was a man who was a head shorter and couldn’t have been any older than me. Cicero was to be our bodyguard. He didn’t speak any English so he just smiled whenever we looked at him and spent the tour always a few paces behind us. Though I learned first-hand at high school -when tiny Sam Wilson beat the crap out of me in a muck around boxing match - that size doesn’t matter, I was wondering what how little Cicero was supposed to guard us from some of the much larger inmates. We discovered later that he was doing 30 to life for murdering two people and, twisted as it may be, that made me feel much better.
Our first stop was the only indoor section of the prison’s seven sections. Smelling of human excrement, the cells
in this section were big enough for a bed and that was about it. Gabriel explained that upon first entering the prison you had to buy your own cell and that the cheapest ones, situated in the section we were, went for US$150. Cells in the nicer areas were as much as $500. We went upstairs to see the section’s laundry and on the way up there was a large TV room filled with kids aged less than 10 watching cartoons. We later discovered that there was also a kindergarten on the premises for children aged 4 - 6. After that they had to start going to schools outside the prison.
From the laundry, on the roof of the section, we could see to the only of the prison’s sections we would not be visiting. Reserved for the super rich, Gabriel called the cells in that area “apartments”. Costing up to $4000 for an apartment, the section was home to two of Bolivia’s previous governors who were doing life for ordering political executions.
Also from the rooftop laundry we could see how easy it would be to make it to the prison’s walls - one inmate was standing on the
The main entrance
Taken on the 26th roof at the time. Despite this, Gabriel explained that no one had ever jumped the walls in the prison’s 150 year history. According to Gabriel there had only ever been two escapes, both had involved foreign prisoners and both had occurred recently. The first, which had been successful, had been 11 Peruvian prisoners who had spent 90 days digging a hole through a corner cell’s wall using spoons and forks (we were shown the cell, which had since been cemented up). The second escape had been an Argentinean prisoner who had walked past the main gates wearing a shirt and tie. Mistaken for a lawyer by a guard and because a lawyer had no business being in the prison since it wasn’t visiting day, he was allowed to walk out the prison’s main gates. Looking for work, the Argentinean had met up with a friend who was a fellow former inmate but was betrayed by him.
The next section we went to had larger cells and a massive kitchen in which the prison’s 1300 inmates’ breakfasts and lunches were cooked. Gabriel explained that a few weeks earlier the prisoners had gone on a three day hunger strike which had resulted
A Side Entrance
Where wives and children enter/exit (Taken on the 26th) in a dramatic improvement in their lunches and that within a month or so they were expecting to start getting dinner as well. We went through the section’s corridors and as we were standing overlooking its courtyard, Gabriel telling us a story, a drunken inmate approached us. Gabriel continued talking as though nothing was happening but this guy clearly had a problem - whether with us, Gabriel or the universe. Cicero sprang in to action, taking the guy by the arm and pushing him to a door, speaking in rapid Spanish. They argued away as Gabriel continued with his spiel, both the Boss and I no longer listening to a word he said. Eventually Cicero coerced the guy in to a cell and we went on our way.
The sections, apart from the first one we saw and the millionaires’ area, were much the same in their layout - a bottom and first floor of cells all built around a courtyard. One section’s courtyard doubled as a soccer pitch, another as a basketball court. In the richer sections, most cells had TVs and for B$20 per month, these TVs got cable! All of the sections had children and women present
and most had restaurants and stores where you could buy food, milkshakes and even beer! Prisoners were free to roam whichever section they wanted, provided they didn’t have any enemies (although some roaming around must have, because we saw a few inmates carrying knives and one with a pair of wire cutters). Guards were not present inside the gates apart from at 7AM and 6PM for roll call, the rest of the time the inmates were self governing. There was a hierarchy inside the prison that was voted upon by the inmates, each section having their own “head” prisoner as it were. It was the duty of the head prisoner, and the hierarchy, to ensure that crime in the prison was kept to a minimum.
Gabriel explained that there was a three strike policy. If you were known to have stolen something from a fellow prisoner, had touched their stuff, gone in to their cell or started a fight in front of the women or children you were given a beating by the other inmates. Your second strike saw you given a more severe beating. Whether to enforce this policy or just because they had them, twice we walked past (read cowered away from) a group of three prisoners carrying large police knight sticks. The third strike saw you sent to the solitary prison “Chonchocoro” further outside La Paz. This was the worst punishment imaginable as in this prison not a month went by without a prisoner being found stabbed or hung. Gabriel told us that one prisoner in “Chonchocoro” had even managed to get his hands on two hand grenades and thrown them in to a cell, intending to kill six other inmates who, luckily, were not in the cell at the time.
I found the story, Gabriel may have heard it via Chinese Whispers so got some details wrong. You can read it here -
Gabriel showed us the outside of his cell where he lived with his wife and two children. His section’s anniversary was coming up on the 11th of November and they were going to have a huge party, with a live band and DJ coming in for the celebrations. It was the inmates’ responsibility to ensure that the section was looking 100%!b(MISSING)efore the celebrations, which meant cleaning and painting the walls and fixing superficial damage to the building.
Also in Gabriel’s section was an elliptical cement swimming pool about five metres in diameter and two metres deep. This was a famous swimming pool for any reader of “Marching Powder” as it was the scene of the book’s most gruesome event - the mob beating and drowning of convicted rapists. Gabriel was well aware of the pool’s reputation and told us that the story from “Marching Powder” wasn’t true.
“I have spoken to prisoners who have been here 15, 20, 25 years and they all say that no one was ever drowned in the pool.” He said that rapists were thrown in the pool and beaten but never to death - though he did say that bricks were used in the beating of these men. The pool was also used by the guards to punish inmates - they were forced to get in the freezing cold water if they were late or didn’t show up to the dawn or dusk roll call. When not in use for beating rapists or punishing errant prisoners, the pool was used by the inmates’ children as a place to cool off and have fun.
Toward the end of the tour we were shown one of the section gyms and upon leaving the gym we were approached by an inmate holding some A4 paper. He gave one piece to the Boss and another to me - each with our respective portraits drawn on them. Gabriel told us that this was his friend and asked us to pay him a few Bs each for our portraits, which we were happy to do. Then he told us about the end of the tour.
“I know you pay some money to enter the prison but that money does not go to us. It is collected and used to buy blankets, tooth brushes and tooth paste for the inmates and children who can’t afford them.
“So at the end of the tour, we would like a tip of about B$100 per person. If you give more than that, I will thank you very personally.
“Also at the end of the tour, we will take you to the special room. I know in ‘Marching Powder’ it says there are seven cocaine labs in San Pedro. These days there is only one but it is still pure cocaine. A beer outside San Pedro costs B$7, in here it costs B$30. But in here, cocaine is much cheaper.
“So talk about it, you can do it, you can say no, but we will take you to the special room at the end of the tour.”
We were in a spot. Entering a jail, we had decided the less money the better so had only brought B$30 and had given B$20 of them to the guy who had drawn our portraits. That left us with B$10 to give to the thief and the murderer who were expecting B$200. I explained our predicament to Gabriel and told him that we would go straight to an ATM once leaving the prison and bring him the money. He was cool about it and a huge load was lifted from my shoulders.
As the tour drew to a close a sudden BANG emanated from a nearby corner. I must have jumped a foot in the air. It was only someone attempting to fix the electrical cables but after having just been shown the cell where an inmate had recently acquired a gun and murdered three fellow inmates, I was a little on edge.
We were taken to the special room, a large group of very awake looking tourists walking out as we approached. We entered the room to find a table with a mirror lying flat on it, a stereo playing and four or so chairs. The Boss and I took a seat and Gabriel started talking to the guy who had been in the room with the last tourists. He was explaining to him, and Cicero, our lack of tipping funds. “Perdon,” I said to Cicero, who smiled in return.
“You give you word? You are man of your word?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes, I swear,” I replied.
“Ok,” he said. And with that we were shown out of the special room, never to discover just why that mirror was sitting on the table.
We left the prison through the main gates, I went to the nearest ATM and came back to hand Gabriel his B$200 through the gates. We exchanged a handshake and The Boss and I walked away free, though certainly not high, as birds.
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Rhiannon
non-member comment
Looks just like you.