Well it has been a week in Kerobokan and the place is everything I expected and nothing like I anticipated. It is, it seems to me, anything you want it to be.
Firstly, full disclosure: Until my sentencing I am going to be a bit more circumspect about fully describing events here and the characters involved. I don’t think I need fear anything, but I just want to be a bit cautious and not give the authorities any excuse to be upset with me.
This is also a reminder to treat this email as personal. It is not for publication in part or full in any way – traditional or social media – or to be quoted. With so many journalist colleagues on this list I know I can trust you…
Kerobokan is very different in every way to the last three months in Polresta remand. Although we are locked in our blocks from 5:30 pm to 6:30 am, you have the day pretty much to yourself and there is lots to occupy yourself with if so inclined. Until sentencing I can’t take advantage of many of the opportunities, but the grounds are spacious and well gardened and I can walk or run along a 1km trail, play tennis, volleyball, basketball, badminton or soccer daily. After my trial I look forward to organized yoga and helping out in the “bengkel” where there are classes for English, silk screen printing, art, cooking, leather and jewelry shops, woodwork and a mechanic’s garage.
I can receive visitors every day (apart from weekends) and people can drop off items every day. Many of the inmates order takeout, and Pizza Hut and McDonalds regularly deliver. The prison food is, quite literally, unfit for human consumption but is dried out by cell block committees and resold to pig farmers. Instead of prison food twice a day, the foreign block – or “Block B” hereafter – gets fresh sliced white bread and either a banana or boiled egg – more than enough for a brekkie.
After that you’re on your own. Lots of inmates run food businesses, so you can always buy any (local) grub you can get on the outside – albeit at a premium. A German inmate runs a catering school so you can also get burgers etc between 10-3.
There are four or five “cooking clubs” in my block where for about $4 a meal you can have Indian, Italian, or Thai for your supper. There is quite a bit of rivalry between them for customers. Each block has its own concessionary – inmates bid for the right to run the shop and the profit is theirs. You can get things like soap, toothpaste etc, but everything is at least 25% more expensive than outside.
Visitors can bring you more or less anything apart from electrical goods, which need to come in the “back door” for a fee. One inmate in my block has hired a full-time maid on the outside who brings him meals three times a day and does his shopping and laundry. All that for around $150 per month pay plus cost of products and produce.
There are four roll calls (or “appels”) a day at 7 am, 12.30 pm, 5.30 pm, and 7 pm and missing one is the second most serious offence after fighting. Apart from that, you rarely see a guard unless there is an incident, and I have yet to experience a raid. Every inmate has a telephone, most blocks and even some individual cells have television. Some cells are equipped with air cons and I’ve seen several laptops and many tablets.
There is a clinic staffed by a nurse Mon-Fri, 9 am – 4 pm and a doctor for an hour each day as well as a dentist once a week. The dispensary has limited stocks, but if you pay you can get anything. So, those are the physical surroundings. Not bad, I hear you say. Sounds like Club Med!! The place is fine, it is the people that make it bad. There are a few half-decent folk in my block, but a lot of them have serious problems – genuine mental illnesses – and tension is always very high. There has been a fight every day – usually handbags at five paces – but far more in Block B than in the Indonesian blocks. It is likely because the rest of the blocks are rigidly monomorphic – all Indonesians and divided into religion, crime, gang etc, whereas Block B is very polymorphic – a United Nations of crime and a Babel of languages. It is very cliquey and although there is some interaction, the Russians tend to stick together, as do the Nigerians, Bulgarians, Aussies etc. We have Kiwis, Italians, French, Americans, Brits, various Asians, Germans… and a Zimbo.
Unlike the other blocks which have one “big man”, we have a committee of four – an Iranian, Nigerian, Italian and Indian-American. There previously used to be one Big Man Iranian, but he was moved to Java after rioting last year. Most of the inmates are hard-core traffickers doing long sentences ranging from life to 15 years. There ara few unfortunates like me and several ATM skimmers (a Bulgarian monopoly). Many – if not most – are users, some hard-core and a few sad alcoholics too.
The block is basically divided into two camps – those who work to make the place livable, and those who moan. The “do-ers” are a small minority but do a great job and the block cells are currently being renovated under their labour. A hyper-active Italian leads the team which includes a Chinese plasterer/painter, a Russian master woodworker (great for secret cubby-holes), a plumber and a gardener.
I’ve joined the “do-ers” and after a series of fights and accidents have already been appointed Block Doctor as my first aid training is clearly better than anyone else’s. Four Indonesians, chosen for the belief they genuinely have reformed – also live with us rent-free in exchange for doing the grunt work of cleaning. I haven’t met all my block mates because some of them never leave their cells. The record is currently held by an Algerian who didn’t come out for the whole of 2016! Others emerge only for visitors, and pay to have food and drugs brought to them. The interior of some of their cells are hovels.
I share with an Indian-American who rarely leaves his room, a “do-er” Malaysian and a worker Indonesian. We were due (and paid for) a cell renovation, but the series of fights angered the guards so we’ve had to stop. The cell is a bit dark and grubby, but armed with my OCD and anal retentiveness I’m already knocking them into shape…
Most of the fighting is about people using other’s stuff, or small loans, or drugs. We’re all supposed to jump in immediately and stop it as it inevitably brings the wrath of the guards – especially if blood is spilt. On my second day a Brit king-hit an Algerian with a brass padlock in a sock and cut his eye open. He is now doing a month-stretch in the notorious “Cell Tikus” – or Rat Cell – and has forfeited over six months of remission. All over some missing Crystal Meth!!
People are constantly challenging you, but apart from a giant Aussie doing time for GBH and a burly Russian trafficker (both of whom I get on with) I’m probably up to the rest, so they have backed down. I also get on very well with the African boys, who are the real “fixers”, which helps. Some people never talk, some talk too much, some are thieves and some are very generous. At least six inmates have got married to locals since being inside.
Much to my amusement, Joe continues to bang his head on karma’s door post. He missed his very first appel by a few minutes and when the guards berated him he said it wasn’t his fault, before taking out his phone and showing them it had reset to Jakarta time (an hour behind). The guard looked on with incredulity before smashing it to smithereens on the floor. The only person who will talk to him is an 80-year-old Aussie paedophile, and so he spends his days smoking meth in the narco block. He looks like shit and is losing it both mentally and physically. He’s been told he won’t get a room no matter what he pays and he is not allowed to enter a public area if I am present and must immediately leave if I arrive.
I should have my first court appearance this week or the next. Things have reached critical negotiation stage so hopefully I’ll have some good news to report. Regardless, I can do this! I am strong and well.