A trip to an Ecuadorian prison

The first stamp that I get is high on my forearm after a pat down outside the front gate. It’s round and foreign, with a symbol that I can’t quite make out. A young guard in front of me checks to see if his large machine gun is loaded. It is, and he cocks it.

The walls of the prison are concrete and tall, with barbed wire circling the top. I can hear shouting from inside.

The second stamp I get after a guard looks through the plastic bag of presents that Rel is holding. Inside the bag is five packs of cigarettes, containing 10 cigarettes each; a beat up copy of “Papillion,” an uplifting book about a series of attempted prison breaks, the final one being successful; and a long, thin package of crackers.

I have almost nothing on me, my valuables left at a next-door deli, where a lady put them in a black plastic shopping bag and hung them on a hook along with Henry and Rel’s. It does not seem like a good idea but there isn’t anywhere else to put them.

In Rel’s pocket is a small notebook; written in the top corner of a page about halfway through, amongst the doodles, is a few names of Americans supposedly inside the prison.

The guard at the front is short and thick, with a graying mustache. He lets groups of about a dozen into a doorway leading into one of the outside walls of the prison.

The line takes about an hour and moves in spurts, giving me ample time to second guess whether or not I really want to do this. Part of me is brimming with excitement, part is extremely nervous, part knows that something terrible is about to happen and part is sure I’ll be fine.

The number 227 is written on my arm near my wrist by the guard with the graying mustache and a small, orange sticker with the same number written in black ballpoint pen is placed on my passport. The door closes behind the group in front of us. We are next.

The door opens and we are led to a desk. Rel takes out his notebook and hands his passport to the guard seated there who scribbles his name on a line of a thick green paper ledger. Henry and I follow suit.

“Who are you looking for?” a thin black guy with dreadlocks asks in Spanish through the bars of another door across the room with a barred window.

“Lee Brown,” says Rel.

I get three more stamps on my arm from the guard.

The door opens and we are let into the prison yard. The door slams shut behind us with a metallic thud and I can hear the clinking of a chain being wrapped through the handles and the click of the lock.

No escort, no instructions and suddenly we are swarmed with people in the yard. There is almost no place to stand. We awkwardly move through the crowd. They are shouting at us. Sizing us up. A few tug on our arms and shirts. A man asks me for a cigarette. Another asks me for a dollar. My heartbeat races.

There are no uniforms, only the stamps on our arms (or lack of) to distinguish the visitors from the prisoners. The black guy with dreadlocks disappears into a three-story structure in the corner of the yard to look for Lee.

There are very few guards, and the closest one isn’t paying any attention. A short man comes up to me and says something about being a killer or wanting to kill me and runs his outstretched finger over his neck.

The black guy comes back. There is no Lee Brown. We try a few of the other names written in Rel’s notebook to no avail. We ask if there are any Americans there. There aren’t. We ask if anyone speaks English, and the young black guy races to find someone.

My body is tense, adrenaline pumping. My biggest fear is that someone is going to come up from behind us. We dole out the cigarettes and Rel trades the crackers for a hand-carved key chain. There are many scars and weathered old faces. Many are crying. A mother cleans a son’s face. A couple cries in the corner. A family is having a picnic.

We are finally brought to someone who speaks English. His name is Raphael, and he tells us that he is a 22-year-old computer programmer awaiting a charge of attempted murder. He speaks very good English and he tells us that he beat someone up because they owed him money and was never going to kill him. He has been in jail for four months and hasn’t been charged yet. I am skeptical of his story.

We talk to Raphael for 15 minutes, and he tells us that there are Americans on the other side of the prison; there were actually two lines at the entrance and we chose the one with people awaiting sentencing. We give him the book and a few of his friends the packs of cigarettes. I feel bad as we walk through the gate, leaving him inside.

All I have to do to get out is show the guards the row stamps on my arm, which they carefully inspect and match my face to my passport. Raphael will have to study “Papillion” vigilantly.

The fresh air hits me as soon as I step out of the door and my body finally relaxes.

The stamps fade quickly, but don’t wash off for days.

- Zac Stuart-Pontier