The vastness of the altiplano. Photo: Photo: Graham Spinks.
Prison in Bolivia
Graham Spinks writes about how he got to shake hands with a dozen Bolivian murderers
Before I set out for Bolivia I had been told that I must try to visit the prison of San Pedro in La Paz. The first person to mention it was a friend who tells a chilling tale of his twenty-one-year-old self smoking pasta with some of the inmates during a gap year at the end of the seventies. The second was my, very much younger, barber who recommended Rusty Young’s book Marching Powder. He claimed that, while not really a reader, he had found this book so fascinating that he had finished it in record time.
To European eyes, San Pedro is an extraordinary place. Reputedly, prisoners are required to buy their own cells – meaning that the wealthy narcotraficantes live in penthouses while the poorer prisoners find themselves sharing squalid cells. The wives and children of prisoners are allowed inside and some even bring up their families within the prison. And the prison has the reputation of being the source of the finest cocaine in the world.
Quaker Bolivia Link
I was visiting Bolivia as part of an international Quaker group. Our objectives were to help teach English to Bolivian Quaker Education Fund scholarship students and to visit and support the work of Quaker Bolivia Link. It is a charity that provides irrigation and other forms of support to campesino families on the altiplano (high plain).
Following our teaching sessions, two former scholarship students gave short talks about how their scholarships had changed their lives. The second talk was given by Magaly Quispe, a young woman from a large, Aymaran family whose scholarship, combined with a lot of hard work and talent, had enabled her to become a sociologist with a secure position at the University of El Alto. In the course of her talk, Magaly told us that she had written her master’s thesis on the effects on children of being brought up in San Pedro prison. She also explained that she remains a frequent visitor to the prison, as she is a qualified leader of the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). AVP is designed to help build prisoners’ self-esteem and provide them with better ways of handling their emotions.
Unregulated buses
Grabbing the opportunity, I asked Magaly if there was any possibility of me being able to visit the prison with her. I explained that I had some experience of visiting a prison in the UK with a Quaker group. I remember not quite understanding Magaly’s reply but guessing that she had said she would think about it and let me know. I didn’t expect to hear anything more about it.
So, I was very surprised a few days later to be told by Barbara Flynn, the leader of our group, that I was to meet Magaly in the centre of El Alto at lunchtime. After some anxious searching, I managed to find her and she hustled me into one of the tiny unregulated buses that buzz around El Alto and La Paz. I was very excited and, also, really enjoying chatting with Magaly and finding that at least some elements of my Spanish worked outside the classroom. Then a thought crossed my mind. If we were heading for San Pedro, I would have expected to have seen some signs of La Paz by now.
Chonchocoro
We appeared to be heading out across the desert of the altiplano. I suggested to Magaly that the journey was taking longer than I had expected. Falta mucho, she replied, there’s a long way to go yet.
I asked Magaly if we were going to San Pedro? No, we’re going to Chonchocoro. Will there be women and children there? No, Chonchocoro is the country’s highest security jail. Only prisoners with sentences of over thirty years are sent there. In other words, they are all murderers.
Magaly requested that the bus stop in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. We found ourselves isolated in bitterly cold, oxygen-less, air, at an altitude of over 4,000 metres with the sun burning down on us. Miraculously, Magaly managed to flag down a car and we travelled for another twenty minutes along a rough track into the remotest part of the altiplano. Here I had my first view of the prison – high fences with watchtowers and a number of paramilitary-type guards patrolling the boundary. A high wall was visible within.
After being searched, and searched again, I finally found myself inside the prison compound. The guards, who wore guns and carried baseball-bat-style batons, were nowhere to be seen. Clearly, their job is to guard the boundary and ensure that the prisoners do not escape, not to protect anxious-looking gringos.
Alternatives to Violence
Magaly showed me where she carries out her AVP training and introduced me to a number of the inmates. I shook their hands and tried to smile my meekest smile. Imagine Jack Nicholson at his most demented and you pretty much have the right image. They clearly had great respect for Magaly – as did I. She is a very brave woman and strongly supported by her faith. The guys were very curious to understand why I was there. Practically none of them receive any visitors. Magaly answered for me, Es un amigo de Paz – He is a friend of Peace. I wasn’t sure that this was really going to cut the mustard.
While in the prison, we also met a pig, some sheep and a few ducks wandering around. Ugh! I thought, they must have knives!
Before we left, Magaly introduced me to some of the senior administrative staff. The hardest question they asked me was to explain the difference between an English and a Bolivian prison. In the heat of moment I couldn’t think of anything they had in common!
For more about Magaly’s work: http://bit.ly/OsXz8b
