A Gringo Doing Time In Costa Rica – Part VII Discipline

What I need is a little discipline as my father used to say. Take advantage of the good fortune of having a secure base. Begin to try to regain some contact with the relationships and tasks that need my attention in the world outside. My legal case. My Mom. My friends. My family!

It is good to have a bunk on which no one comes to sit and smoke cigarettes in my face. A locker that I need no lock for, both for the relative poverty of my possessions and because in this module, the men do not steal from each other.

The generosity of my compañeros allows me to make a qualitative leap in my ability to function. I got a pen, some paper. At last I could write down the three numbers I had memorized and make other lists, transcribe the notes I had scrawled on the back of torn cigarette packs. Arcilla gave me a phone card with 1,000 colones on it… worth maybe 20 calls to someone’s cel, or lots more to land line phones.

I was moved upstairs on a Friday, the day before my first Saturday in jail.

Saturday is visiting day. My gears started to work. I got busy making a list of things I needed to get accomplished on Saturday, my only direct point of contact with the real world. Julio said he would be here for sure.

Saturday came and went. Visiting hours begin at 8:00 am and end at 1:00 pm The last bus with family and visitors arrives to Puesto Nueve from the front gate at noon. I got up early and bathed, no towel, dressed and waited. I passed the morning in my bunk until at noon it was clear that no one was coming. So be it.

No use getting all worked up which just ends up costing time and accomplishing nothing, and time is not to be wasted.

Not getting a visit had its advantages at this point in time. Other people were receiving bagloads of food and material aid from family members and friends. Cigarettes, cookies, fruits and vegetables, food. It was a spectacle.

Everything that entered the jail was observed and catalogued by covetous eyes. Not getting a visit, especially for a gringo, stood out. I was actually turning out to be the poor gringo I had been claiming to be. “My people” weren’t rushing in with suitcases of money to bust me out, none of my presumed lovers and girlfriends showed up, I didn’t get 20.000 colones worth of groceries and sundries delivered with love…

It also hardened my resolve to deal positively with setbacks and disappointments.

I was kind of stuck though, because Julio had my cel and my phone numbers, the keys to my house and car. All I could do was call him and ask him again to get me some phone numbers and listen to him again tell me that next time we talked he would. Obviously it was time for me to find someone else to help me than Julio.

On Monday, I got a call from the gate in Módulo D, I had a package, a “bomba.” Julio had dropped off my backpack stuffed with a strange mix of clothes, lacking certain things that I had asked for and including others that I had not.

But in any case at least now I had a towel and my own pen, but still no paper. And not my glasses. No agenda. No phone numbers, no phone card, no laundry soap or dish soap or toilet paper. And the irreplaceable documents that always stay in that backpack were not in it anymore, which got me concerned. Things were getting dangerously sloppy around my life.

Somewhere in my notes in español I wrote “no pierde tiempo en alguien que se le falla. Nada más hay que buscar solución en otro lado.” “Don’t waste time with anyone who fails you. There’s nothing to do but look for solutions elsewhere.” I wrote that after I went through this first full week in jail. At first I was still thinking that I had left my vital affairs in dependable hands. Then I found out what was really going on and a solution found me when I was rescued by a real friend.

In the meantime, the validity of the adage “the first days are the hardest days” became apparent as I crashed into the limits and impositions of being imprisoned. People kept asking me if I was “caneando”… I had to ask what that meant. So it means “turning your hair white” and it refers to letting yourself get all stressed out over any kind of thing be it actual or illusory, to the point of losing perspective and just letting the thing run your life.

It’s actually a social concern if people start to canear en masse, because that’s when fights start and the doors come off their hinges.

Maybe it was the constant noise. Not just noise, but jarring shouts of greeting and stupid comments, ‘GRINgo! Mae… COME PAN!??! Le GUsta??!!! jajaja!!!.”

The regular town crier from the incoming phones, with one or two men yelling out the name of the call’s recipient – “SOMBRA! telEfono!!” – to the four directions echoing back into the jail’s 4 modules. The noise from the four TVs, one in each module, usually in synch but not always, with a heavy schedule of forever young and sometimes obscure 1980s MTV videos, real Moon Martin stuff, mixed with Lady Gaga no less than 3 times every day between 9:00 am and 1:00 in the afternoon, and filled out with lots of Michael Jackson, Guns N Roses, Wilson and Yandell and Daddy Yankee and Cher and POD.

Loud enough to make it sound real good on those real high quality little TV speakers, you can imagine. Rock out.

Maybe it was feeling just how powerless I had become over what was happening to me, my space, my life, my belongings and affairs.

It was clear that “outside” my weakness was already exposing all of my belongings to risk now that I was out of sight and mind locked up and gone for 6 months. My house keys and car and cel phone were in the hands of someone who had been keeping me in the dark now for going on 10 days. When I called him, he answered the phone, but I never could be sure that he did what he said he did so it had become useless to talk to him. I needed another contact, but had no phone numbers. Jail can find the weak spots in your preparation pretty fast.

It is frustrating trying to communicate with the outside world because of the way the phones are placed in the noisiest part of the jail and the calls are limited to 5 minutes and have warning recordings that make people hang up. Not having any phone numbers is also becoming a real bottleneck.

I’m stressing out over how I can’t get Julio to come up with phone numbers, wondering why none of the people I asked him to call me have called yet, wondering if my car is secure even though he tells me it is. Can’t call my Mom’s caretaker Yerlani because I don’t have the number. Can’t call my friend the Teletica reporter, my bilingual friends who could call my kids for me and wish my son a happy 28th birthday on the first of March, no one.

One morning I look down and see a new 4 cm long pure white hair sticking up off of my belly. I am definitely caneando now amigo.

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Written by Terrence who is a 53 year old Gringo living in Costa Rica.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.