Marci Soifer

Never a dull moment in prison...I will say that. Today, the entire set of volunteers still living in my house (about to shrink more from 10 to 5...tomorrow) piled in our minibus van and traveled to prison. Unlike the day that we entered as a pack for the Christmas party, we planned to go inside to strictly pick up the children. That is right...today was outing day and we were taking the kids on an adventure, as had been done for them on most other Fridays of the year (aside from the other two we have been here for, which were basically considered holidays).

Merly, my ten month old friend, was outfitted in her fancy pink dress and bonnet, lacey ruffle socks, and white saddle shoes (that looked more grey). Willy wore his denim overalls, which had definetely been washed for the ocassion, and carried a blue rocketship lunchbox on a red strap around his neck, holding three mango juiceboxes (we were only leaving for a few hours...did his mother really think that he would be THAT thirsty?). Christian wore his special red Winnie the Pooh hat, with an embroidered figure that looks nothing like Winnie the Pooh. Jorge was outfitted in some kind of interesting army fatigues, complete with a green borae (I have no idea how to spell the French hat...but you catch my drift), which I had never seen the 1-year-old wear previously.

Obviously, these kids were ready and raring to go, and their mothers were exstatic that we were there and going to take them outside. I held Merly in one arm, and held Nick by the other hand, when a group of women working on emroidery (mind you, none of them have children inside) called me over. Since I can actually carry a conversation in Spanish, I was able to follow their words as they asked me if I was planning to take any of the children back to my country with me. I told them that I do really like children, but no, I think they are better off with their mothers. They argued with me a little, and told me that I should take some of the kids, since they would have a good life in the United States. That was when I had to tell them that I do not have a job, I am going to school (which is not exactly true), and that my mother told me that I cannot have children right now (also...not exactly true...but I mean, might as well be). As soon as I mentioned my mom, they let it go. Phew...thank goodness for Sandy Soifer.

After that, the possee of volunteers and children (which at the point had been adjusted to a 1 to 1 ratio) left the prison. Of course, there were a few tears, since for all these kids know we were actually taking them away from their mothers permanently and the outside world is something they hardly/never have to comprehend (and forget about strangers...way too scary). But, out we went. I had Nick (the traditional discipline problem), my friend who has a cleft palette and as a result, has extremely impaired speech. As we drove away from the prison, he pointed to every, single animal we saw and would yell, WOW WOW WOW WOW, which is actually the only thing he can say, other than agua and mas (water and more). Since he was sitting on my lap, and on the ride to and from prison consists of a long path of small huts sprinkled with tons of cows, stray dogs, and lambs, Nick really had many opportunities to let me know that there was a WOW WOW WOW WOW outside. And, I smiled each time (you would have too).

Our destination was the central Ayacucho market (1 of about 50 markets), or mercado, where hundreds of people work each day, selling fruits, veggies, flowers, cheese, nuts, and of course, live and recently slaughtered, bloody animals (my personal favorite). We walked in a long line, slowly, each volunteer tightly grasping the hand of each child (or as Nick preferred, plain, old, on the hip carrying). We passed cages holding 50 live, squalking chickens, pidgeons, and roosters, and screeching guinea pigs. Every so often, one of the birds would fly in the air a little bit, and the kids would open thier eyes wide enough to shrink their foreheads, and open their mouths to shout (you guessed it...Nick used this as his additional opportunity to yell, WOW WOW WOW WOW) (I continued to laugh and laugh).

As we asked the kids what certain objects or colors were, and they mostly did not know (except Willy is convinced that every, single animal is a horse...I am going to work on that), the women and men in the market started to take note of our little caravan. Each of us started to get questioned if the kids were ours. One indigenious women, dressed in the traditional Qechua skirt, manta, and hat, angerily questioned our native program coordinator, Marisol, what we doing. She told her that she thought is was rediculous that we had all adopted these children and were taking them away. We explained to her, as we did with the others who posed questions, that we are volunteers and that these children live with their mothers in prison. Suddenly, before we could really notice, many of the men, women, and children who had been wandering or working in the market were following us. We had attracted a lot of attention.

Once we were leaving the market, we piled into our mini bus and waved to the assembled followers (one of the kids asked me if he and his infant sister -carried in his 10-year-old arms- could come with us, and I had to nicely tell him that we could not take more people) as we pulled away. We continued on to the main plaza of Ayacucho, where I spend a lot of time on my own. It is full of people, shops, churches, and park in the center. We took the kids into the main church, because the doors were open, and we wanted to go inside. There was a humungous mass going on in Spanish, with a large crowd and clergy dressed in white robes. We stood in the back, where people casually walked in and out and talked (so we were not disturbing in any way). The kids wanted to see the nativity display this church had near the entrance, complete with a small waterfall (which was the real draw). Every place in this country (being a Catholic country and all) has a nativity display, which they are only now starting to break down. The kids recognized this from prison, where they have quite a few still in tact. Again, Willy told me all about how all the animals watching Jesus were horses. Laughing, I told him that he was right...I mean, they were animals.

Next we had the highlight of the outing...we bought the kids ice cream. Sitting out on the plaza, watching the pidgeons come and go (and the kids like to chase them...as they do when the pidgeons land inside the walls of prison), each child recieved one creamsicle. Now, today was about 90 degrees and sunny, so you can imagine that more of the creamsicles ended up on the clothing, hands, and cheeks of the kids than in their mouths, but they still were rediculously happy. I imagine that they had not had ice cream since the last time volunteers took the kids out...three weeks ago. And, I could recognize in the extra enthusiastic WOW WOW WOW WOW from Nick that this was quite a treat.

12 ice creams and a myriad of napkins later, we again hopped into our mini bus to return to prison. When the kids were returned to their mothers, some were happy, most were messy, and a few had more tears, because they had to say goodbye to us. When I let go of Nick, and he ran to his mom, she immediately brought him back to me. She asked him to give me a kiss, and he did, and when I stood up, she pulled me in for a hug. Into my ear, she whispered, gracias, mi amor (thank you, my love).

When we left prison and headed back to our house for lunch, my mind remained focused on the faces and voices of those children. We had such a great day, and the kids were so well behaved. Everything was perfect. That was when Marisol told us that she learned that Suzie, the mother of Pierro (one of the boys), spent the time we were otuside crying. As it turns out, Pierro just celebrated his 3rd birthday, and the prison refuses to give him food anymore. Apparently, the kids can stay inside with their mothers past their 3rd birthday, but the prison refuses to supply them with government food. The older children are strictly fed by the products from their mothers, and that is only when their mothers can afford it. So, Suzie cried, because she cannot afford to keep her son with her, inside. A shadow was cast on my day when I learned that sometime next week, Pierro would no longer be happily playing with the other kids, sitting on a blanket with his mother, or hugging my knees upon my entry each morning; Since Suzie does not know how much longer she will be inside, Pierro will be sent to live with his relatives in either Lima or an area of Ayacucho.

I know that I am not here to change the system or make some revolutionary adjustments to the way of life of these incarcerated women and children. But, I am here to make some kind of a difference, and make sure that something inside has been made better because of my contribution. So, if Pierro has to go, I will say goodbye; and when I do, I will remember his smiling face from today, crusted with sticky orange and white remnants of ice cream. I will have to say goodbye to them all eventually, I know, as I move on to volunteer in Lima, travel, and return to the States. But, I have a feeling that I will spend the rest of my life wondering what will happen to them, these women and children. At least I know that there is always the next two weeks, and a couple more outings.

The holiday season turned over today. The random street markets on a handful of tarped booths were cleared out to make room for regular traffic and Christmas decorations are finding a way down. I have seen more street preformers in the plaza, which I pressume means that even those individuals (like all other Peruvians) have completed holiday vacation and returned to work.

I have been at work for the past two days, and since there is no ¨time off¨ in prison, the women and children remain thrilled to recieve us regularly. They told us that they had a New Years Eve party inside, which was a special, co-ed mixed event. I was glad to hear that the festivities spread all the way inside (and for the record, they did not see fireworks, but heard them), but was left wondering what they have to look forward to in the post-holiday season. The other volunteer (there is only one other now, as the third has returned to the States) has started a regular English class each day for nine women (and tons of others who sit on the periphery listening) at 11 am. Some of the women already know some English from previous volunteers, but they are ready to learn more. There is a woman named Anna, who knits over the English worksheets in her lap, and a woman named Denise, who greets us with a booming ¨GOOD MORNING¨, her favorite English expression (other than Öh my g-d¨, which she says with laughter all the time, and we have no idea where she learned it). The women seem mostly eager to learn, since it is something to do and for some of them, it could help them get release sooner.

There are a few details to the Peruvian prison system that I am now coming to understand:

When someone is arrested in Peru, they must wait for a sentence in prison. This depends on the nature of the crime (and circumstances), could take up to a year, and often takes the full year (even for drug trafficing). There are two types of sentences; one is standard and the other is with benefits. If your sentence is standard, you will have to serve the entire thing, without question. If you get benefits, there are tons of things that you can do during your time to short the duration inside. For example, things like cooking in the community kitchen, listening to the prison psychologist give a lecture (who is actually not a psychologist at all, but a priest who preachs about ways to atone), or taking English lessons could all shorten one´s sentence. This means that if you got a sentence of 15 years for drug trafficing, but your sentence is standard, you would have to stay inside for the full 15 years. And, if someone else committed homicide, they might recieve an 8 year sentence, with benefits. The person who committed murder could spend the time inside doing all sorts of things that the system considers ¨helpful¨, and get our of prison in half of their sentence...4 years. Crazy, huh?

In other news, I am trying to come up with a structured activity that I can implement consistantly each day with the kids, similar to the English lessons with the women. I am finding that since they are little kids, and curious about their surroundings, they would appreciate learning. They want to know what their body parts are called, and the names for animals, colors, and numbers. So, I am trying to come up with a type of activity for 1-4 year olds that I can implement for a few minutes at the same time each day (which will only interupt running rampant, climbing all over me, swinging on the rusty swings, munching on bits of chicken off relatively bare drumsticks, and you know, going to the bathroom, a little bit). At the market today, I bought some coloring books with images I am thinking about copying and labeling for them (yet another example of how I am learning in this process as well). But, I am looking for something more stable than these. The idea is that I could create something that coming volunteers could pick up on, and give these kids some kind of consistancy. Please send any suggestions my way.

This afternoon, I decided to visit the local elderly home. It is in the middle of town, and I was walking past with a volunteer who happens to work there, so we went in. It was actually the most beautiful place that I have been inside in Ayacucho. It is amazing. The facility is huge, with long, tiles sidewalks, well tamed gardens with caged peacocks inside, and an enormous church built in the center. There is a side for the men and for the women, and we went to see the women. There are 23 women living there, and it seems like most of the time, they sit in a clump in the garden. Just the way that many elderly Jewish people speak Yiddish while their spawn speak English, these elderly women spouted Qechua (while the young employees spoke to them in Spanish). So, I didn´t understand them at all, which did not stop them from talking to me or to the wall for long periods of time (to which I just nodded and nodded), hugging and kissing me, and of course, holding my hand. They all wanted to touch my hair, and look at my freckles, which are a real commodity here in Peru. Only a few had teeth, or much hair for that matter. They were all properly dressed in classic indigenous dress, with colorful skirts, sweaters, and black hats, from their hunched over seated positions. Using hand motions (I have gotten so creative at communicating without language), I painted a few extremely soft, wrinkled handfuls worth of nails in a putrid pink they all seemed to LOVE. The oldest women I met was 104, and the youngest in her early 90s. Alas, when the clock stroke 5:30, it was time for bed...amazingly, and the women all piled into their rooms. Some live in single bedrooms, while a few others actually live in large rooms with multiple beds. I loved it, and think I might just have to return on another day. There is definetely some fun brewing from experiences with these ladies.

In the meantime, I continue to email, write this blog that I recently learned that someone is actually reading (which is always fun), dance to the pop music on my IPOD around the bunk beds in my room, make Spanish flashcards to use for nightly drills, wear the ocassional scarf in my hair, brainstorm ideas of what else I can do for my kids, and sample Ayacucho restaurants, bars, and markets, among other things. So, thanks for reading. Let´s make a deal...I´ll keep up what I´m doing, and you keep up what you are doing. Great. In that case, until next time...

Happy New Year. It´s the first day of the year, and I think that Peru has taken note. The myriad stray dogs still roam the streets and the ice cream selling women in yellow smocks still bicycle over the cobblestone, pushing a small matching yellow freezer on wheels in front of them. However, the traffic has trickled to nearly nothing, the pedestrians have vanished, and the majority of shops appear closed. As I entered this rather dingy internet cafe, I even noticed a yellow and green uniformed woman, sweeping litter from the street (which is something I never see during days of regular pedestrian movement). Ayacucho seems to stand still today, in the 85 degree sun.

However, such was not the case last night. I decided to stay at home, as I have been struggling with a bit of dehydration (don´t worry, it´s not the plague of my house, but it still threw me for a loop...but I´m much better today) and since most people from my program did not go out. Instead, we grouped on the roof of the building and watched the city ring in the new year, from above. Similar to the New Year in the States, alcohol is prevalent, stupid hats are rampant, and there is much yelling, dancing, and...merriment. Unlike in the States, Peruvians take advantage of the New Year to set off as many fireworks and small street fires as they possibly can. Progressively through the night, we heard a bang or a pop here or there. But, as we sat with an ear to the chaos down below and a scenic view of the city, the clock struck 11:45. The city errupted. Literally in every direction one could turn, fireworks filled the air. Each patch of sky within sight was either a colorful display of lights or a temporarily hovering cloud (post fireworks). The people in the streets danced and shouted, and in two spots surrounding our building, set fire to piles of shoes. The children fueled these fires by continually tossing in small firecrackers (I have no idea what these are called...but you might...you know, those small ones that just pop). This continued until about 1:15. This morning, the air outside our front door still smelled a bit like burning rubber. However, the fires were extinguished, despite the fire department´s noticeable absence throughout the night (I mean, I noticed). Overall, it was a really memorable evening, and I had a great time.

So, that´s the report from here. Tomorrow, I look forward to asking the women inside if they could see the fireworks display from behind the high walls of the prison, since I was thinking of them last night. The prison is set off far from the city, and has towering walls that do not allow for much viewing of the outside, aside from directly above. Other than that, I guess the holidays are over. Tonight is the final time that I will light my disposable menorah, and tomorrow, I will actually dispose of it. So, happy holidays for the last time, and I hope this is a good year.

And, if anyone has suggestions for methods to train both your brain and hand to write the correct year in January, I´m in need of tips (considering the current page in my journal is now a sloppy mess of scratched out 05). Haha.