A Gringo Doing Time In Costa Rica – Part I

It could happen anywhere in the world but this is the continuing story of a trusting – some might say gullible – North American man called Terrence and his very unfortunate experience with a vicious, cunning and deceitful woman which led to a stay in prison in Costa Rica.

My name is Terrence. I’m a 53 year old gringo with 5 years and 4 months of living in Costa Rica. I just got out of jail, where I spent 7 weeks of a 6 month sentence for failure to pay a pension to a Costa Rican woman who I married almost 4 years ago.

I got out without paying, which is an unheard of thing. But all that comes later in the story.

I drive a pirate taxi for a living in my home town of Santa Theresa. I had just been doing that for a month when I got arrested. There is another long story behind how I came to become a cab driver, working en español for about $2 an hour, less if you deduct the cost of maintaining the car.

But driving a cab here does have some bearing on the story at hand, because it did a lot to prepare me for going to jail here. I wasn’t born here, and when I got here 5 years ago, my Spanish was limited to “Bonas Diaz ameego.” It has been a long road from there to being able to find “Doña Rosa, en Calle Pericos.

“Mae alli por una entrada a la izquierda 100 metros antes de que llega al Don Pepe. Pega la cerca mae, a la mano derecha, ya ‘stá” and pick her up in my cab in under 5 minutes. Getting to be one of the “compas” en el trabajo. Feeling like I finally landed here. The cultural fog is clearing. Contrary to popular gringo misconception, in fact, the streets do have names here, you just have to know how to speak to people to find out what they are.

The hazing at the Taxi Base was instructive, and in retrospect, worse than the one in jail by far. The guys on the street are way more defensive of their territory. It’s normal right?

Nobody wants just anybody in their club. In jail there isn’t much choice about that, but there isn’t much choice about anything in jail, that’s the point of jail.

The guys at the Base gave me several days of serious harassment and snide remarks every time I missed some detail of their instructions and orientation, which was frequently because they were using language they knew I didn’t know.

If you want to live here and understand what is going on around you, you have to learn not just español, you have to learn Pachuko. Street people shuck and jive. Pachuko is the language of normal people jiving around and passing time.

Not understanding it obscures probably 90% of the content of the communication one is likely to hear in the street. I had just completed about a month of intensive Jive studies at the Base when I went to jail.

I live in a little wooden shack next to a dirt road up a steep hill, right at the entrance to a large cow pasture. The shack has no interior walls, just planks nailed to the 2×4-ish frame, with nice wide cracks open to the outside.

I have services, electricity and water, and a tube for cold showers. Being located in a rural setting, I share my space with any number of crawling, flying and slithering creatures. I have killed 5 scorpions, or alacranes as they are called here, in my living room, bedroom and closet. I found one in my bed crawling under my head beneath the blanket. I let that one go.

I bring all this up to make the point that my actual living arrangement also prepared me to go to jail, which in some ways is actually more comfortable than my shack. At least there are no critters nastier than cockroaches and mice in the jail. It wasn’t like I had to radically lower my environmental standards to take up residence in jail, although the smoking in jail was a definite problem that I don’t have at home. It’s like living in an ashtray in there!

The prison I was sent to is called La Reforma, Unidad de Pensiones de San Rafael de Alajuela.

It is a large isolated building set in between pasture fields and chicken coops on the 300 hectare complex that comprises the whole of the prison called La Reforma. There are many other sections of the prison, apart, where hardened criminals are housed. The Pension unit is reserved for men detained for pension debt, each doing 6 month sentences.

My arrest was executed pursuant to an “Orden de Captura” which had been issued by a Family Court judge in la Juzgada de Pensiones in Santa Theresa. The judge presumably was obligated to make the warrant when my “wife” demanded it as was her right since I had not paid her her $200.00 pension in about a year.

The story of that year is really out of hand, but suffice to say, I got good and beat. Going to jail at this point just seemed natural. I took it in stride. The ride here had given me some hard knocks so some of my rough edges were a little softened up, ready for the pressure.

I was told on arrest that I had to pay 600 thousand colones ($1,200) right now or go to jail for 6 months. I called my lawyer Don Eddy, but he was on a trip to the far east. Back in a couple of weeks they said, sorry, you’ll just have to wait for him in jail. I was given a chance to make a few other calls on my cel at the police station. I called my friend/compañero at work Julio to come help me out with my valuables, get my car, my keys, my cash and get them all stashed until I could figure this out. I called my kids in the states and left them messages. I called my landlord Vicente and left him a message. Then time was up and I was taken away leaving my cel and charger with Julio.

Minding my business working one afternoon, then within 45 minutes on my way to spend 6 months in prison for the crime of not having the money to pay an unjust and contested pension. It is a complicated plot that has had me suffering enormous damages while attempting to turn the legal tide in my favor.

I have been the victim of a fraud. I was married for the material interest of another person who was using me as a means to obtain my inheritance. I was recently interviewed on one of Costa Rica’s most noted television shows, 7 Dias as an example of male victims of female domestic violence and abuse. I should not be going to jail, except that by law, it was possible and therefore necessary that I be sent there.

Just plucked up off the street in my shorts, t-shirt and flip flops and taken to the dungeon

The memoir that follows is intended to do at least two things. One is inform any interested English-speaking people about what it is like in jail in Costa Rica. How did I manage? Another is to give light to some of the problems that I saw and to try to help in making things better, for myself and for Costa Rica and Costa Rican families.

Before the memoir begins, I want to get some Frequently-Asked-Questions off the list of things to do.

1.) How’s the food?

The food is OK, but there is no variety and everything is cooked with bicarbonate of soda, to control the male urges. Including the coffee. Rice and beans two times a day, supplemented on occasion by stew with beef, rice with chicken, hard boiled egg and cabbage salad. Watered down syrup-based beverage twice a day to drink. Coffee is available from 6:00 am to 9:00 pm. There is no charge for the food, but it helps if you have your own cup, bowl and spoon. If not, you need to be befriended by someone who can give you those things, or go hungry.

2.) Is it dangerous?

Yes and no. Theft is nearly universal. You’re going to lose something. But violent assault is typically associated with involvement in drugs or other black market activity. If you are clean, you won’t be bothered much. But intimidation is common. That is, the bullies and caciques like to prove their dominance of the social environment by making provocative and/or insulting comments at people, by jumping ahead in lines, by overusing the telephone etc. !

There did not seem to be any problem with rape or sexual harassment in the time I was there.

The guards are indifferent at best, but they are not mean or violent. The level of professionalism can at times dip below tolerable levels, as when a guard makes a pass at the sister of a prisoner who visits on Saturday and then makes veiled hints about how much better life would be if the brother made a good introduction. Or when the prison Director chooses to make misleading statements that compound problems and takes issues personally when confronted with men irritated by human rights violations. But generally, the prison administration is decent, if at times irresponsible.

3.) Is English spoken?

Almost universally, no. But some of the men imprisoned there are from Limon. I had two acquaintances from Limon who spoke English conversationally. There was also one other gringo for most of my time, a senior citizen Vietnam Vet. My español is sufficient enough that I was able to get by without any special help, but the Vet spoke about 10 words and it was interesting to watch how the blanks got filled in for him.

Many Ticos can speak a few words of English. Ticos are also excellent at interpreting from the abysmally weak Spanglish spoken by most gringos. Using hand signals, broken English and gestures and ticos can usually navigate through whatever situation for a lost gringo. And ticos are gregarious, so the Vet had an enthusiastic set of resources to draw on in cases of misunderstanding. I frequently translated for him with guards and others, but he managed to get his food and his marijuana just fine without me.!

There is a whole world of prologues that are not here recorded that give the story that follows its full context, but for now, I begin on the evening of Wednesday 24 February 2010, riding into the dusk out of my home town of Santa Theresa in the back of a police car.

Come back and visit us next week for the next chapter of A Gringo Doing Time In Costa Rica.

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

Or ….

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.