Pandemic Calendar: Living in prison at the time of COVID-19, without losing your life in that attempt

2 March:

Once again, it seems to me that we live in a crazy world. COVID-19 has entered our lives, but we don't know what to think: on the one hand they're creating social alarm and, on the other, they say it's like a simple flu. Utterly contradictory messages that we hear in the headlines of all the news.

Another woman has been murdered and another group rape. On the border between Turkey and Greece, the Greek police killed two people at the hands of their partners. They fled their warring countries in search of a place to build safe present and future. These deaths have long since ceased to be important news. Bad sign if we get used to them.

13 March:

A security officer came to the module this morning and told me to refute the March communications. It was like this.

"In view of the alert caused by the spread of the COVID-19 virus and the need to avoid the risk of contamination by people or family members coming from the areas at risk, you are informed:

'Weekend and face-to-face communications in March will be suspended until the situation in the areas of risk and neighbouring countries (Autonomous Community of the Basque Country) improves […] Against this resolution you can file a complaint with the Central Court of Prison Surveillance'.

Reading, I came up with three ideas.

1. The Basque political prisoners have always been signed as special follow-up prisoners (Special Follow-up Inmates File, FIES), now it seems that our relatives are also signed as special risk individuals (Special Risk Individual File, FIER – these abbreviations do not exist, they are inventions… or not?).

2nd It seems that friends cannot infect (“in the face of the need to avoid possible infections by ‘friends...”). Once and for all, without having value as a precedent, one is grateful to be a woman and not to be appointed.

3. According to the news of the Community of Madrid, it is also one of the areas at risk. Have all the Madrilenians in this prison been given the same role? In my module there is a Madrilenian and they have given him nothing. How can they know who comes from those areas? I suspect that only we have won a fat prize once again.

14 March:

A state of emergency has been declared. What the hell is that? It looks like a La Sexta weekend table movie.

It seems that not only the Madrilenians and the Basques are "dirty" anymore, but anyone who breathes is an alleged diffuser. No one can leave their home or be imprisoned (except officials). The prisoners again made a difference. I believe that all the measures taken in this crisis will be banned, and I believe that improvisation will be from now on.

15 March:

It's Sunday, the first Sunday of the COVID-19 ages. But I'm not going to talk about that "crowned bug" that's come into our world to stay. He is the protagonist of all the interviews; all the television and radio shows speak of Bera and has the power to influence the governments of several countries to impose the state of alarm. He will change the habits of life from one day to the next, and it seems that for Him they will isolate us even more than before.

16 March:

On Friday we were informed that as a result of COVID-19 school and scheduled activities and communications were suspended. These measures were taken preventively to prevent the virus from entering prison. I thought these houses were open to everybody.

The weekend has been quiet, there are jokes with the virus among the girls. But today, Monday, some people are starting to stand out with their needs and demands. We have been confirmed that communications between modules will not be carried out either and that exit permits have been suspended. A few cries have been heard at breakfast that have affected the area. After a bit of confusion, the same ones who complained have decided to present to the security authorities the instances of acquiring sex toys. It goes from one end to the other, I believe that we will need time to manage the changes and measures that are taken here.

I believe that they are not/are fully aware of what is happening out there.

In the evening, at dinner time, the deputy director of security came, who explained the state of alarm inside the prison. Summary: Nobody enters or leaves the modules, they give us more calls to "compensate" the communication suspension and if we ask them they leave us in the cells, but we have to go down to the meals – we will eat in two shifts.

17 March:

This has only just started and in the module there are still "sweets" (any substance that puts it). We'll see how it's all in a week's time. And we'll see what happens to addiction problems. One of the main channels of drug introduction in prisons, that of communications, has been closed and many need it. I'm quiet, but I worry a little bit, and think about how it's going to take you in other modules and other jails. This module is small and safe, what can come is what makes it "portable," but how are other members going to be? I am not going to anticipate any misfortunes, we are going to try to catch up.

23 March:

Last week, when he called Kontxi (mother), he told me that José Ángel (father) was not well, that he had a fever. Unable to leave their homes because of the prohibitions related to the health crisis, they called the emergency phone and told him that if he had no other symptoms there was nothing to do. It looks like they're full of COVID-19 and the rest of the diseases don't exist. I wanted the symptoms that the emergency told you about didn't appear.

Today I called Kontxi to tell me how they are and Esti (sisters) picked it up. It was strange to me because I was confined to his house in Vitoria.

What are you doing there?

"Dad's really bad, I don't know if he's going to come out of this.

"What?"

I didn't know what to say, I repeated him crying to tell my father that I want him a lot and remind him that I love him a lot. I also talk to my mother, and I say the same thing to her.

Two women who are experiencing something tough in the first person and, in addition, have to try to cheer me up after I've been given the news. I can't imagine what you're experiencing. They can't -- and they don't want -- take him to the hospital because it's not COVID-19, but it doesn't react with drugs. It's a hard day. After the call ended, I go to the yard, while crying, thinking that I may not see the old woman again (father). I've been asking for permission to go see for a long time, because he can't come. Today I am farther than ever from mine, helplessness and sadness overcome me.

24 March:

I call, it seems that José Ángel has started to react. Feeling of tranquility and joy, but I want to be prudent and see how it evolves. They have only been in lockdown for ten days. I think of all elderly people with dementia or mental illness. How will this lockdown affect you? What happens to diseases other than COVID-19 that can die? What about the isolation that so many people are suffering from? The prisoners are aware of the hardness and serious consequences of isolation. How long will this last? Has any thought been given to the consequences of this lockdown?

18 April:

It's the birthday of the wood, of her daughter, who today turns 10. He has to live his day in a strange way: he cannot leave the house, he will not celebrate it with his friends and family. I personally thought that at the age of 10 we will no longer enjoy the confrontation of coexistence. I'll have four hours less a month to share with him, but at the same time, he won't have to make that extra journey that he did and won't miss the day of class. This fascinated him very much (here, in the prison of Castellón (Catalan Countries), the prisoners of cohabitation are on Friday from 09:00 to 13:00). He gets tired and our family sacrifices a lot for him to come and see us. If I have to get something positive out of this lockdown, it's that family members are saving miles and hours on the road. There's no concern about an accident. But we miss you, and I miss those little bubbles of time and space that are opposite. That’s the only thing I can call “our” here, our face to face. I also miss the following emotional hangover, in which I explain everything he has lived with you, all your gestures, words, silences, smiles and outrage.

7 May:

Yesterday, an official came to the module who had not been there for a long time and represented another. He rushed to talk to me about the few measures being taken to prevent contagion in prisons. He told me that he was tired of asking the management for the appropriate measures: masks for all – officials and prisoners – PCR tests, to take the temperature when they come to work... But they don't pay much attention to it, today they are given a single face mask to keep them throughout the cycle they're working on, which means spending two days and one night with the same mask, and it also seems that it doesn't meet the necessary requirements. You told me that you read it in a prison, that you do not know, that my colleagues protest and fight for appropriate measures, and you encouraged me to do so too. It makes me happy that an official will encourage me to protest.

I have already presented two instances for us to distribute the masks or, at least, give us the material to do in the sewing workshop. There is no answer. In addition, I believe that among girls there is neither that concern nor fear of contagion. The external reality is not being experienced here, and there are few of us who see the informative ones. And what we see, we're detoxifying it from so much information and from Tertullians who speak with so little scientific rigor. We've always lived in a parallel world, but from time to time, fresh outdoor air entered our communications. We no longer have the umbilical cord that united us with the outside world.

13 May:

Carolina died tonight. The reports of the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions will include an additional death toll. But for us, the girls in the eighth module, it's not a number.

After this death, I remember all those colleagues who have died in these years, and especially José Ángel (Otxoa de Eribe), a companion with an eternal smile. I remember it like this: always smiling. He was a great friend and a terrible person, always worried about others and unwilling to disturb anybody at the same time. They didn't let him enjoy his life with them, and it's unfair, because if someone deserved that happiness, it was him [José Ángel Otxoa de Eribe, Alavés, died of cancer on October 29, 2019. He was incarcerated nineteen years, in 2015 he was found with cancer, but he was not expelled until July 2019, four months before his death.] I don't want to feel angry, because I'm convinced that José Ángel wouldn't like it.

There is a lot of talk about the loneliness in the death of COVID-19 patients and that family members cannot help them. Well, if you die here, it's always alone. It's cruel, and these days it shows you in the most brutal way.

14 May:

In the afternoon, we've met almost all the women in the courtyard to pay tribute to Carolina, and we've said goodbye.

-Carolina, it's rare that you think we won't see you again in the module. You've gone without warning and we haven't been able to fire you. That wasn’t your style, because since you’ve arrived you haven’t stopped being a wrestler and a ‘goalkeeper’, don’t get angry, you know we say it affectionately. You had a special gift to get together and get what you wanted. You've left soon, but you've lived very fast.

No one deserves to die in jail, and less when freedom feels close, as in your case. Thinking about it gives rage and sadness. You don't have to fight those feelings, but you have to remember other moments, those moments you smiled and laughed at. We've had good times with you and I think it's a good time to remember. We won't hear your special accent again and we won't hear your complaints with mimos. I'm sure you'll be where you are, you'll be going crazy to the ones you have next to you. You've been in strange times, a lot of people are dying, and we think the best tribute will be to continue with the best smile with our lives.

Carolina, you have been "genius and figure to the burial" [a Spanish saying that it has always preserved its characteristics]. We'll all remember you, and maybe we'll come to think that you've finally come out free and that you're enjoying full stop.

A greeting, a kiss. We may one day find ourselves again.

16 May:

In these weeks of lockdown, one of the best moments of the day is when I go to the mail. Almost every day I have some surprise. People now have time to do something that's analogous: sit down with a paper, grab the pen and write some lines. By letter I have again found the colleagues who are on the street and those who lost the track, I have received letters from friends who have not written to me before, and many strangers have encouraged themselves and sent me the letters. The worst thing is that you will expect my answer, and I find it difficult to do so, because of the limit of the two letters of the week and the number of letters I have received.

18 May:

Today at 11:00 in the morning I've had the video call, the second of my life and the lockdown. I had the previous one on April 24, at 17:00 in the afternoon. The first time, as I waited for my shift, I saw that everybody was crying with emotion. I was really excited, because I hadn't seen the faces of the girls and Iñaki for almost two months. In addition, I was able to get to know his house, a magical and healing house, which cost Iña so much, which has become a home and a welcoming refuge.

It was ten intense and special minutes. I enjoyed it, and I realized that they were very good. I, unlike the other prisoners, came out with a big smile.

Today's quote was with José Ángel and Conchi. This has also been very special, as I wanted to see her after the scare given to us by the viejillo. In addition, I hadn't seen it for nearly 5 years. The video call has been shocking and they've joined uncle and cousins. It was crazy.

22 May:

A security official has given me the National Audience's car. He said to me: -Today I will bring you something good for the customs to change. And it was true, I was resolved by the appeal filed by attorney Txema, requesting the presence of José Ángel. And this time, they did.

"(...) authorize the prisoner the special authorization he requests to go to his father's home... for serious illness of his father, taking the security measures deemed appropriate and being at all times in police custody.

This authorization may not be granted until the state of alarm created by COVID-19 allows the movement... ".

They have allowed me so many years of begging, so many resources presented, and in the midst of a pandemic and a half confined world. Once again, I am surprised at the illogical logic of this penitentiary legal system. Someone once said that if you come to understand the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions you are lost because you have become one of them. Wise words certainly.

3 June:

The security officer has come down to the module to request my mother's address and phone. I got a little nervous and I asked him if that means they are preparing my kunda [transportation]. He has told me that he does not know, but that he believes that he will not take me yet, because we are in the first phase of de-escalation and transport has not started again. He told me he'd find out. I waited.

5 June:

The official has come to announce that tomorrow they will take me to Zaballa (Álava) to prepare the mockup [travel bag], which I will leave soon. I didn't expect it to be so soon, I called Iñaki to warn him. I've realized he's nervous and I know he'll be like that until I call him by Zaballa. How terrible it is to be familiar with the prisoners, in these most cruel times!

6 June:

I left at 8:30 on a live kunda. They give me a mask, it's the first time I have it in my hands, I don't know or put it, and I'm wrong. We are still in the early stages of the smoothening of the confinement, transport has not resumed, but I am rushed to fill the National Court's car. They have put me in the van and we have only stayed in Zaragoza to change civil guard and vehicle. We have reached Zaballa after the three. The module of the entrances looks like a desert, I think to see one of those mounds of grass that appear in the movies of the Far West. There's no one, I don't seem to be expected.

I've been included in module 14, isolation for sanitary quarantine. Once in the cell, the first thing I do is look for Hala Bedi's tuning on the radio. I'm tired and I'm hungry. In Kundan and in the morning I did not eat anything so as not to vomit, but it did not help me, because when we arrived in Zaballa, I threw a veal. I don't know what they'll bring me for dinner, but I'll love to take it. I have put ETB to watch the Teleberri, after so many years it makes me weird to hear the news in Basque. I'm close to home, it's rare to be here.

9 June:

Around 15:30 I left jail to go to see José Ángel. I'm nervous for many reasons: I haven't seen my father for a long time; for over 20 years I haven't stepped into the house of Lanciego (Rioja Alavesa); I've been without communicating with anyone for months; and all of this is added to COVID-19. I know it's impossible for me to get infected, but I think it's inevitable to think that the van he's brought to me can be undisinfected. I am not "paranoid," but it is clear that the information we receive influences the decision that will be taken. I don't have words to say everything I've felt today.

23 June:

I finally got out of isolation. Around 17:30 I go to the 10th module. I've been in a cell for eighteen days without going out at all. Less well than in the dungeons of this prison there is a shower and TV, and three days a week an official has come with a mobile phone to talk to the family. But in other places, like Castellón, there are no showers, no telephone, no television. The conditions are much worse than when you get an article or when you pay penalties.

26 June:

It's my first visit to the newsstands since they left them. Today I have realized to what extent I have missed them.

Face-to-face meetings will begin in July, but here they will be very strict with the measures: we cannot touch, we have to be a meter and a half away and be with the face mask on. The truth is, it doesn't seem very nice to have your daughter, your partner, your parents so close -- and not to be able to hold her in her arms.

I do not know if it is because there have been cases of COVID-19 here, or because in CAV prisons health is managed by Osakidetza, but it is clear that the measures being taken are very restrictive.

25 August:

The meetings in Zaballa have again been suspended because of the public appearances.

27 August:

We haven't been able to leave the cell all day, as a woman has been transferred with symptoms to the hospital and we have to wait for the test result. At the end of the day we have been told no, and tomorrow we will be able to go down. From now on, when someone has symptoms, are we all going to be confined? We will have to take it calmly.

16 September:

I've come to Castelló. Here the quarantines for which we arrived from transport have been removed, but the mask has to be worn at all times. I'm going to have to ask for some of you to include me. I see that there are few people who take it seriously. Many of them are carried in their neck or hands. There has been no contagion here, personal interviews and communications are being made, but in many prisons they are suspended.

13 October:

I have received a letter from Ana Belén [Ana Belén Egues Gurrutxaga] from the prison in Córdoba. He has told me that he has listened to an official who spoke on the radio on behalf of his union, asking me to cut off his heads, because on the street it is also forbidden to hug him, what? There are no comments, and we prisoners agree with this measure, how? Anne rightly says: "Ask us really and look at the consequences that this is going to have on us." That we have and are able to adapt to everything, but that if you measured the level of anxiety of the prisoners, it might be flirting.

Starting on 25 September, all live meetings have been suspended. In managing the crisis in prisons, our rights have been further reduced. Why have they not reduced the number of prisoners? Why haven't the sick and the at-risk groups been taken out of the streets? Why have the infirmaries not been strengthened, they have been invested in prevention, they have been tested, they have been given face masks, etc. ? The questions Ana asks, which are also mine.

26 October:

This is not over, and we don't know when it's going to end. The latest news is that the state of alarm has been decreed in order to comply with the curfew and other tougher measures. I don't know if I'll be able to make my face deferred tomorrow. The main feeling is uncertainty.

I've eaten a lot since the pandemic calendar, thinking putting it all would be too long. Still, I'd like to mention a few of them to end in some way, even if it's above. I would like to mention the beautiful moment he lived with the two daughters in the Zaballa announcements (on the other side of the glass), without making the usual long journey, enjoying all the freshness. I'd like to mention face-to-face intimacy with my partner in Soto del Real prison, as one of those beautiful gifts that gives you life. I would like to mention Axier Aginako and Igor Gónzalez Sola, friends who have left everything; I stay with the good times I have lived with them in Aranjuez, their relatives (especially Aitziberri) send them a hug full of affection and strength.

Finally, I believe that young people deserve special mention. Our oldest daughter is 16 years old and in her flesh I see how she is doing against young people. As they demonstrate their ability to channel their outrage in an exemplary way, I believe that the various police officers keep the persecution against them. They are criminalized while they are being robbed of an important time of life, for them a hug full of joy and strength.

*Alicia Sáez de la Cuesta Martínez de San Vicente (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Álava): He was arrested by the Civil Guard in Galicia in 2001. The court sentenced him to 30 years in jail for the murder of a civil guard in Vitoria-Gasteiz and for a crime of integration into ETA. He reported having been tortured during the period of incommunicado detention. In 2013, when he served his sentence with his daughter Zura in the prison of Logroño (Spain), he was transferred to the prison of Castellón (Catalan Countries) for refusing to share a cell with another prisoner. He just returned to the same jail in November 2020, with the second grade. He will end his sentence in 2031.