Today, I was supposed to visit a prison in Bogota to talk to drug smugglers, murderers and rapists. The trip to visit foreign nationals incarcerated in La Modelo, Colombia's largest prison, has been in the pipeline ever since I arrived in Bogota, other volunteers rather annoyingly having gone the week before I arrived.
After several weeks of false dawns, disappointments and a vow of silence from the prison officials that needed to authorise our trip, our visit had finally been rubber-stamped and set up for this morning. The volunteers set off early (notably, a lot earlier than we ever all leave to go to the orphanage, school or to feed the homeless), letter of written permission and two forms of ID in one hand, pot noodles and chocolate bars for the prisoners in the other.
We made it down to south Bogota where La Modelo prison is located on time. We made it through the front entrance to the prison, past the school where the children whose both parents (there is a mans prison and a womans prison) are in prison go to, and past the flash new prison wing where convicted politicans live in isolated luxury. I even made it past the initial ID security check to the point of getting my hand marked with an ink stamp, when the heartbreaking bad news was broken to us:
A security incident would unfortunately mean we would not be able to enter the prison today (and probably not this week).
To say I am gutted is an understatment. It is a massive disappointment, summed up beautifully by Jenn the Irish girl when she announced on the bus-ride home (after comfort-eating the chocolate bars she had brought for the inmates) that she felt nearly as bad at not getting into the prison as she had felt when France's Thiery Henry scored with his hand against Ireland in a World Cup qualifier last year.
Personally, I feel nearly as bad as whenever England win at anything. However that said, I had a sneaky suspicion all morning that our visit was going to go 'barriga' (belly) up at some point, after noticing when the prison guard was entering my personal details into his computer, that the IT system La Modelo prison is running on is Oracle-based and not SAP.
The disappointment amongst Irish and Scottish volunteers was evident
Footnote: Al and Josh, if you happen to read this, thanks A LOT for your ongoing efforts to get Jenn and I into the prison before we leave, its REALLY appreciated.
