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RICARDO

For urinating, there was a heavy, cement trough that was moulded into the wall, but on the wrong angle, so the urine never drained away completely and there were always a few centimetres of it collected at the bottom. A sign on the wall said you were supposed to dump a bucket of water in the trough after urinating but no one ever bothered, so the piss just sat there, bubbling and frothing and stinking the place out.

For defecating, there were five partitioned cubicles in a row, each with its own swinging door. Inside each cubicle, there was no actual toilet; just a hole in the concrete floor that you had to squat over. At first, it was a strange sensation not having a seat, but you very quickly learned where to position your feet and after a while, you got used to it. When you’d done your business, you had to throw a couple of buckets of water down the hole to wash away any spillage and to help push the waste along the open pipe that ran beneath the floor and out of the prison. For the sake of hygiene, the inmates enforced this rule, although the waste never ran freely along the pipe, so there was often a horrible build-up that no one volunteered to clear.

The second time I needed to go to the bathroom I went by himself. There were a few inmates hanging around and they hissed at me and called me ‘gringo’. This time, they also spat on my back. I pretended not to notice, but when one of them started pushing me, I hurried back to Ricardo. After that, I was afraid to leave his room. When I had to go the bathroom, I did so very early in the morning before any of the prisoners were awake. I didn't even take a shower until Ricardo suggested that I smelled a bit. Even then, I tried to find an excuse not to go to the bathroom.

‘But the water's too cold. I'll get sick again.’

In fact, the water in the showers wasn’t just cold; it was icy, particularly in the early mornings when the temperature in La Paz could drop to below freezing. Ricardo couldn't argue with me on that one. The showers were supposed to have hot water, but at that time they weren't working properly so he usually showered after midday, when the temperature of the water in the pipes had risen a few degrees and he could sit in the sun afterwards. Instead, he brought me a bucket with soap and hot water, which is what he used himself when it was too cold for a shower.