I’m fully ensconced in my room now — prisoners never call them “cells”, it’s too harsh a reminder of our situation — but I still wake around 4.30 each day, just as the more pious Muslims begin their prayers.
The qibla, or direction of Mecca, is right outside my door, so I tip-toe past the prostrate and weave through the slumbering inmates scattered around the “aula”. There is room only for 48 prisoners in the cells, so the overspill of 15 must sleep in the central hall.
Getting a room is dependent on several factors — tenure, wealth, status, influence, popularity — and positions are coveted, as you can set them up to your fancy and be removed from the madding crowd. A place in the block costs one million rupiah (about $100) and in a room a further three million, but all the money in the prison won’t buy a spot for some — the paedophiles, for example, and Joe the Grass.
A couple of prisoners are resentful I jumped the queue and got a room on arrival, but I’d done my homework and made contact with the block committee before my transfer; You learn quickly it’s a dog-eat-dog world in here. I get on very well with the Africans, who hold the most sway among the foreigners, although I still suspect they were a bit surprised to see a “muzungu” show up on their doorstep instead of a brother.
I’ll make a coffee with hot water from a flask I’d prepared the night before and light a cigarette at the front door. I now have my phone and iPad, so catching up on the news is easy. (I knew Trump would be a disaster, but who would have guessed his administration would provide such comedic value?).
At six a couple of “tampings”, or trustee prisoners, will open the block door and deliver a crate of bread and either a basket of boiled eggs or bananas. A gong is sounded and the hall sleepers have to clear the area and move outside while a couple of the Indonesian residents sweep then mop the floor. If you have a room, you can stay inside, but the rest have to go out, regardless of the weather, and their griping begins. Some have had a room in the past, but were ejected for theft, or fighting, or general obnoxiousness. Some have been kicked out several times (you have to buy your way back in each time) and they tend to be the biggest moaners, complaining about the power of the block committee and their influence with the guards.
I’ve given myself the task of sweeping the outside of the block every morning. Since I’ve lived in Indonesia, the sound of a thick bristled broom sweeping outdoors has become as familiar as a cock crow, and the rather mindless activity gives me the chance to contemplate the day.
To keep my mind active I’ve taken to giving the inmates literary nicknames based on their nationalities — the three Russians, for example, are the Brothers Karamazov, and bits of their personalities mirror that of Mitya, (perpetually stoned or drunk), Ivanya (a Buddhist who spends hours meditating) and Alyosha (a charming 24-year-old jailed for the improbable crime of shoplifting a surfboard).
The most voluble of the morning moaners is a sixty-something South African trafficker I’ve nicknamed Oom Schalk Lourens, from Herman Charles Bosman’s short stories, who clearly has early onset Alzheimers and begins each day complaining about how he has been kicked out of five different rooms (for theft) and how one day he is going to burn the place down. He walks around with a metal spoon in his pocket which he’ll tell anyone within earshot is more deadly in a fight than a knife, but at the first sign of trouble he bolts. I’m astonished at how cheaply some of my fellow inmates have given themselves away. Oom Schalk was caught on his 20th drug run, smuggling 2kg of chrystal meth from South Africa to Asia each time, for which he was paid just 30,000 rand a trip — about $2,200. He will die here, having received a life sentence.
The first “appell” is at 7.30 and you must be inside your room (or outside the one you have been nominally assigned to) while the guards do a headcount. Some prisoners never leave their rooms, but the glimpse of an arm or a leg hanging from a bunk is enough for the guards.
I go walking around the prison yard after the count and as I know lots of the inmates from my three months in remand I’m constantly stopping to chat. Many have that wired appearance of a night on the meth pipe — and they’ll inevitably ask to borrow money — but some are doing well and keeping themselves busy. Each block is different and kept to a standard dependent on the inmates. There is a strict Muslim block, a couple of hard-core gang blocks and a full-on druggie block, which is the most decrepit, with an unkempt garden. The next door block to ours holds the high caste prisoners, including a white collar relative of my lawyers.
Visiting starts at 9.30 and although you’re supposed to wait until you are called, the prison tannoy is effectively inaudible and most prisoners rely on a WhatsApp message from their visitor to alert them of their arrival. I’ll write more about the visiting process separately.
I’ll try to do an hour of formal Indonesian in the morning and read and write a bit before second appeal at 12.30. Once the guards have left, the block desperadoes start emerging from their cells to organise their stash for the night, and that’s when it’s best to keep a low profile. They’re coming down, hungry and grumpy — and quick to anger.
“Ned Kelly” has six months remaining of an 18-month stretch for using someone else’s passport. He skipped parole in Australia after doing six years for drug offenses on the Gold Coast and once deported faces six more for further crimes. He is pasty white apart from a series of tattoos inked in Kerobokan and a typical red meth rash around his nose and mouth. He’s probably the heaviest user in here — his parents, apparently, send him enough to fund his habit — and reckons he intends to do something before his release that will guarantee he stays for at least another year or two because he likes it so much.
Ali Baba is another of the twitchy meth heads. A thief from Algeria, this is his third time in Kerobokan (he specializes — not every well, clearly — in stealing handbags from restaurants and using credit cards for Internet fraud). He has just been released from three weeks in the dreaded “Cell Tikus” (rat cell) for fighting, but seems to have learnt nothing from the experience. Last Friday he spent half an hour shouting at himself and then took a wild swing at me, missing by a mile, before running away when I shied back at him.
There is a trio of Singapore lads here, and Lee Kuan Yew would be delighted to see that it mirrors his ideal of a harmonious republic, represented by a Chinese, a Malay and an Indian. They get on well together and share meals and other resources. The inequity of the legal system is apparent in their cases. The Indian guy had a crook for a lawyer and received seven years for possession of 10 ecstasy tablets, the Chinese lad is looking at 18 months for half a gram of crystal meth and the Malay boy, who was almost certainly duped, 15 years for collecting a parcel containing 100 grams of meth.
If I haven’t got visitors in the afternoon I’ll walk around the prison for half an hour or so, getting to know the place, or help out with some of the maintenance on the block, particularly the garden. Once I’m sentenced, I’ll be able to work with some of the rehab programs, teaching English or even perhaps in a fledgling media operation the new prison commander is trying to set up.
We’re locked up after the 5.30 appell when I’ll have dinner. I try to keep an eye on the unfortunates and most nights share what I’ve got with someone who hasn’t been eating well for a few days. Some of my fellow inmates are constantly waiting for “money from home”, and often have nothing to eat but more of the breakfast bread. I’ve made a vow not to lend anyone money — it will inevitably be spent on drugs — but will share food.
I’ve stopped eating in the various supper clubs, and now I’ve got the ice box several visitors are bringing me frozen, vacuum packed meals which keep well and are easy to prepare. I really don’t know how I would survive without the astonishing help I’ve had from the outside, but more on that in another edition.
I’ll chat with some of the more sociable inmates until the final appeal at 7.30, after which I’ll generally retire to my cocoon in my room and read, write, or watch something on my iPad. There is a TV in the aula which seems to show only wrestling and kung fu movies, but by nine most of the hall dwellers have dragged out their bedding and are starting to fall asleep. You can hear the “doof doof” of club music coming from a couple of the cells, and heavy traffic to and from them as the users go in for a session on the pipe. This can go on until 2-3 in the morning, but I’ll usually plug in my earphones long before that and drift off listening to Radio Four.
One cell mate grinds his teeth incessantly, and when I found him coughing up blood last week insisted he went to the clinic for tests. The result came back this afternoon and he has TB, so he has been taken out of our block and put into isolation with five other confirmed cases. Another of my cell mates is also coughing constantly so he too has been tested, but we’ll have to wait a week for the results. I’d taken the precaution of getting some surgical masks from a friend when I first noticed the blood coughing last week (this was just a couple of days after I moved in), so I hope I was in time. Tomorrow I’ll give his cubicle a thorough clean, but I’ve already sprayed enough disinfectant around to gas a regiment on the Somme.
Meanwhile, I’ve been working on transferring all my previous Foxhole reports to a WordPress Blog, and so in the next few days you should receive an invitation for a one-time registration to the site as I want it to be visible only to those already receiving this newsletter. In time it will also feature pictures and video, and hopefully form the basis of something productive for when this saga is over.
My trial proper starts on Thursday. Wish me luck!
Thanks again for all your help, care and concern.