To make live, to make die

Folds of an expanding confinement

Urgent accounts from Argentina prisons

collected between May and June 2020
Cover photo: Alejandro Tosso

The cover photo is part of a series of

photographs which originated from the
construction of masks and the reflexión on
identity during the carpentry workshop
organized by YoNoFui in the Ezeiza
Complex IV from 2010 to 2017.
To make live,
to make die
Hacer vivir, hacer morir : pliegues de un encierro que se extiende
: relatos urgentes desde las cárceles Argentinas recopilado
entre mayo y junio de 2020 / Dalma Emilce Lobo... [et al.]. - 1a ed.
- Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Yo No Fui, 2020.
58 p. ; 16 x 11 cm. - (Escrituras amotinadas ; 1)

ISBN 978-987-45670-2-4

1. Relatos Personales. I. Lobo, Dalma Emilce.

CDD 808.883

Colectivo Editorial Tinta Revuelta - YoNoFui

Collection: Escrituras amotinadas

Graphics: Virginia Giannoni

Buenos Aires, 2020
To make live,
to make die
Folds of an expandign
confinement
Urgent accounts from Argentina prisons
collected between May and June 2020.
Table of contents

Prologue
Introduction
Dalma Emilce Lobo, from Complejo IV of Ezeiza
Ana, from Unidad 31, Ezeiza
Juliana, from Unidad 31, prison nursery, Ezeiza
Stancy, from Unidad 33, Los Hornos
Nati, from Unidad 33, Los Hornos
Fer, from Unidad 47, José León Suárez
Lourdes, in house arrest
Geral, from Unidad IV de Ezeiza
Prologue

Going to jail is like taking a leap into the void. Hav-

ing a network ranks high in its stock market, it is
part of the capital that many do not have, neither in-
side nor outside the prison. A network that contains
you, that is elastic, that in the midst of change does
not ignore you because you are a heavy load to bear.
A network that accompanies you at times when not
many would, especially because not having it, is an
important part of the reason why we got to a prison.
Let’s put aside, for a moment –and if we can, for-
ever– moral evaluations, guilt and consequences.
Social fabrics begin to break long before reaching
prison, they wear out, they begin to disintegrate
when those who should accompany you –your fam-
ily, your affections– do not exist or are cardboard
figures. The State itself criminalizes you when they
throw you out of all the schools, when they leave
you living on the streets as if you were part of the
landscape, every time you didn’t even have a portion
of food and you managed to create tactics to survive
hunger, dispossession, heartbreak and debts that
were already on your head long before you were
born. The fabric is also broken when closed ones

9
and strangers do not recognize you as part of their
community or of the same species and they leave
you as a spare daughter lying inside a prison, so you
can fix yourself as you can.
The same net that should house you, wrap you
around, keep you from falling, so that you don’t hurt
yourself, cuts their ties to its thinnest shreds. This
lack of a network is what makes it impossible for
you to access house arrest or have a “package” or
parcel with merchandise or hygiene products. That
network through which you can get a job if you are
released, without your criminal record haunting you
for years. The same one that, due to its inexistence,
will make you fall into the void over and over again,
coming out of prison even worse.
Inside you can only be embraced by the peers and
the bonds that emerge from the warmth of coexis-
tence and sharing spaces that take you out of the
prison logic.These bonds are seeds of organization
and struggle, which like cactus roots, sometimes,
take time to grow in the shade and in the rarefied
air of “to each their own” and “I entered alone, and
I am leaving alone”, but when they do grow, they are
persistent and become so strong that they change
the way you see life. They insist on growing and cre-
ating strong channels like veins trying to irrigate

10
blood in the grave, pumping a beaten heart that
wants to live.
A beaten heart that wants to live despite a sentence
that declares you half dead, because for society, you
are no longer a person. You are the percentage that
should not come out, that the newspapers talk about,
someone who do not deserve second chances, as if
you had had a first one.
The networks that are formed inside need air from
those who come from outside, that is the only way
to defeat the system that awaits you with open arms
to sink you further.
Here we share the stories of six comrades de-
prived of freedom in different prisons: Complex IV
and Unit 31 of Ezeiza, Unit 47 of José León Suárez
and Unit 33 of Los Hornos and others who are under
house arrest. Comrades who fight for the possibility
of a life away from prison or confinement, who fight
against COVID while food-deprived and without hy-
giene items . Every day they come up with strategies
to make themselves visible to justice and to a society
that does not see them. They fight against the impo-
tence of being treated throughout the sentence as
second-class citizens, a file number, a surname lost
in a folder in the courtroom. Peers waiting to hack
the algorithm that declares them “cannon fodder”

11
of the system, peers trying by all means not to have
to go back to jail when they are released, as several
of us were able to do thanks to the fabric of affective
and political networks.

12
Introduction

‘Care’ today is a disputed field, that is why there

are several questions to ask ourselves. In these last
few months, many people have been released from
jail under house arrest. Let’s be clear, house arrest
is far from heaven. This process is shown as caring
for people who were deprived of freedom, but what
happens once they leave prison? Who is in charge?
This is where care comes into play. We are an organ-
ization that is part of a community that historically
survived thanks to collective care, the alternative
care to the state apparatus. The only cares that guar-
anteed our existence were our collective yarns and
mutual aid.
The voices presented here tell stories in the first
person, stories that are archives of sensations, se-
quences, gestures, daily experiences configured by
an architecture made for surveillance, a spatiality
that creates ways of programming relationships
protected by racist, class and patriarchal violence.
Prison is structurally violent, as are the colonial
modes of justice, created to shore up the founda-
tions of the nation-state, a white justice, a virile and
punitive justice. Punitive power is embodied in tech-
nologies of punishment, ordering bodies and vitali-

13
ties, which at the same time that it makes you live,
it makes you die. That is why we keep asking our-
selves what other modes of justice can we create?
To get out of this new protocolled necronormality,
to be inadequate. We insist and appeal to the capil-
lary memory of alternative justice practices, which
do not rely on individual logics and which involve
us as a community.

Collective YoNoFui

14
Dalma Emilce Lobo

In this pandemic moment

that killed so many people in the world
that the judges have not been sensitized
that they are not aware of the risk
of the detained trans population,
it is outlandish.
We are eight people
with risk factors in this unit
most with HIV.
I am undergoing treatment for tuberculosis,
there are girls who had gangrene tuberculosis
with tumors in the armpits
there are girls with skin cancer.
We are people convicted of drug dealing
and minor things
with sentences of less than five years.
legislators make the laws
and judges abide by them.
The defenders do not want to work with trans girls,
it is very sad to hear the repeated stories
that for ten bags of cocaine
that do not reach, do not reach 3 grams
cases are put together that condemn you

15
to be deprived of your freedom for four years
it is very sad.
I take this opportunity to repudiate
the public defenders who do not want to work
want to resort to a plea bargain
and that the girls assume all responsibility
instead of taking them to trial.
There is a friend, Rosa Bañez
she was lucky that they took her
to an oral and public debate.
No one showed up
nor the victims, nobody.
They gave her four years, appealed for cassation
and then declared the case inadmissible.
Most trans people don’t have laws.
I have received criticism for being an activist and a
student.
They have called me all sorts of things
they have no idea why we are here.
The police create cases for us.
Before we were detained under a law
that said that a man dressed as a woman
could not circulate on public roads. So said the law.
This changed in the code of coexistence in 1994.
Trans people always were
the most punished.

16
Those legal articles were removed.
Before they would take us to jail for a few days
for being dressed as a woman
now that code no longer exists
but there are new methods
now they stop us, they search us.
In here we make batucadas
but nothing comes out from here
from inside the walls
society does not know what happens inside
in Devoto1 they could not cover it
but things happen here.

Most are foreigners

this happens because the police stops you
It is the police who want to make your life impossible,
the girls are afraid
I advise them to speak with the Defense Office
so that they listen to them
to not be afraid, because fear paralyzes.
That’s what I always try to do
advise them that they have to fight for their freedoms
and do not sign plea bargains.

1
Federal Penitentiary Complex of Buenos Aires (previously
known as Unidad 2)

17
The previous administration made changes
and now you have no benefits.
Certain chambers released trans girls
but they modified the drug law
there are no drug traffickers detained
there are people detained for 5-10 sachets
of less than 1 gram
and then they announce
that they arrested a narco.
We feel mocked.
Society does not find out about such things.

We feel impotent.
I have a prosthesis that is about to burst,
they do not listen to my ailments.
I reported the court for discrimination.
We feel very bad
we need a lot of support
we don’t have psychological treatment
because there is not enough staff to serve us all
there are no doctors
or they take us to the doctor
when the infirmary closes.
This is a torture center
not a rehab center.
I feel something that is inexplicable.

18
The law never benefits us,
when there is doubt, we are still condemned,
we are threatened
and if you don’t have a bit of information
they trample you.

This system is so corrupt

for us it is so stigmatizing
they mock us
they tell us: “guys, it smells like balls.”
The service, when they have us face to face
they call us señora but you turn around
and they say... estos putos de mierda.
They told me mal nacido
because I live denouncing
they treat me as a man
they say I have to be responsible
for what comes my way.
I say
I lost my freedom
but not the freedom of a livable life
as it should be, as the penal code indicates.
There are many reasons
why we are detained:
social class
we have no money

19
plus, we are trans: double bias.
We have recorded videos
of the conditions in which we live
for weeks we have been demanding bleach hygiene
products
we still haven’t received anything from the state.
Some state organism must take responsibility.
They continue to hurt the trans community.

I made myself a shell on the outside

so as not to break in front of my friends
before their cries, before their sad looks,
I try to give them strength
sometimes I can’t find it
I try to give them words
sometimes I can’t find them
that takes its toll on me at night.
I defend the trans collective in here
I try to support my friends
I don’t want to keep quiet
They threatened me, they set me on fire
it is all over social media.
They wanted to kill me
I am missing a piece of ear
forty people raped me
during my detention.

20
I take antidepressant medication
I was kidnapped for three months in Melchor Romero2
sleeping on a cement bed in full winter.
I don’t like these memories
but whenever they give me a chance, I say it
so they can see that I paid three or four times the
sentence.

All this happened to me for being an activist

militant and law student.
I am imprisoned for defending the trans collective
and I would be imprisoned again for defending it.
This is my vision:
let society know that we are in here.
When the virus comes in here
it’s going to be a total slaughter.

I fight against a system

I don’t know if I’m going to beat it.
I was a pioneer in the fight for girls to work
I was the first in the university in Unit 1.
I am proud to be a trans girl
I want all of this to be left behind.
These memories hurt me daily

2
agregar nota

21
when I shower
when I shower and I see the scars
they left on my body.
I still have strength for my compañeras
for me and for those to come.

22
Ana

I am housed in the pre-release houses in Ezeiza

it is a privilege, but it still gets complicated.
We are getting worse
I am a risk patient, my options are limited.
It worries me how bad everything is getting outside.
We try to take all the precautions
we have no other choice, but it is very difficult.
The only ones who can infect us
are the penitentiary staff
it is the only way of entry.
Now quite a few people have gone into house arrest.

We are used to being locked up

I have been detained for the last ten years
and I always worked
I worked nine to ten hours a day.
Now without working, everything is more complex,
I can’t connect with anything, I’m not interested,
I can’t make contact with anything, and I’m afraid.
It makes me mad when they say
that we are all going to get sick
because getting sick in here is not the same.
I have hypertension, asthma, kidney problems,

23
I take heart medication
if the virus catches me, there will be a feast.
If the corona doesn’t kill me I’ll die of a heart attack
so I calmed down.
I have a particular prosecutor and a particular court
they asked for my file
and they understand everything that I have
but they say that here I’m fine
because there is a medical center.
So there is not much you can do
I do not know what to do
I am afraid of getting sick
because in other countries they had to choose
who would die and who would not.
I don’t have to tell you
what would happen if they have to choose
between a prisoner and a common citizen.

Seven years ago I had my daughter

while I was deprived of my freedom
and sixteen hours after the cesarean section
they kicked me out of the maternity ward
I had an I.V. and medication,
I did not have a girdle
and they transferred me seating up in an ambulance
Nobody cared about the state I was in

24
and they kicked me out of the hospital.
My daughter was a newborn and it was not her fault
my baby was sixteen hours old
and they were already declaring her guilty.

What happened in Devoto3 is understandable

but it generated a lot of anger with us, the prisoners
because we are women
and everything always falls harder on us.
Few have empathy with us
and that’s what scares me the most
imagine if I get to a hospital
in an extreme situation
they are going to let me die because “one prisoner less”
“one less criminal”
that is the fear of the girls that we are here.
Living with that all the time is hard.

Now we do not have visitors and that is very tough

it is hard on us, not being able to see the people we love.
We feel very alone.

3
It refers to the collective demand that men deprived of free-
dom in the prison unit Villa Devoto in Buenos Aires made on
Friday April 24th 2020, as the first positive case of COVID-19
was registered there.

25
The first days there were no cars on the highway
and that made us feel more confined
I was gasping for air.
We are adrift, we tell our families
that we are alright
so they don’t worry,
between us we support one another
but it becomes difficult.

Being deprived of freedom is very tough

and more so in this situation.
Life is on hold
but here we are still locked up
We asked for house arrest because all the conditions
were given
and they did not give it to us,
it was very difficult to find out about that.

Prison is a place that depersonalizes you,

it is difficult to find yourself.
It’s a place that shouldn’t exist
but since it exists, we are far
from where it should be.
This should be something else.
It hurts me to listen on tv
when they say that ten years is nothing.

26
I have been here for ten years
here a day is a week
a week is a year
and a year is ten.
I am a mother with children who are outside
and I am worried about the violence.
I have had a very bad time
they almost killed me several times in here.

In prison there are many innocent people

it seems trite but it is like that.
A year ago I read the case of a compañera
she was incarcerated for a bag of potato chips,
for nothing.
I have a complex case, covered in the media,
the only undercover witness
said that there was no participation of women,
my sister, my daughter and I are convicted:
they gave me a 24-year sentence.
They just said that we did not participate
and gave us twenty-four years.
This is not a media case, this case became a media case.
They told us:
We judge you because you were in the media.

27
I write for my compañeras
their requests for house arrest
and I couldn’t write one that would get me out of here
in ten years.
They didn’t care what happened
they cared that we were on TV
if it hadn’t been on TV
I would now be under house arrest.
The judicial power is supposed to be
an independent system
but the judicial system is a power
that depends on the power of the media.
The amount of people who plead guilty
and sign plea bargains to go home
is a lot.
Nobody cares about us
or very few people care about us.

Once, a compañera
who didn’t have many resources
was treated badly by a supervisor,
the supervisor made her feel bad
and I told the supervisor, with respect,
Do you know how many teenagers are incarcerated
today
in a state of addiction?

28
They come, they get caught for a phone
the service mistreats them
and they come out four times worse
than how they came in.
Who will help us?
Did that girl have options? Did she have tools?
Judging is the easiest.
Until we get in the mud
it won’t change
this is very deep,
this is not solved by putting patrol cars,
cameras and the rest
that ends up being a business.
We have to get into the mud and take responsibility
that prisons exist.

29
Jessica

It’s been two months since i am alone

i have a son of one year and eight months
i am anxious, nervous
my release its not yet resolved
they don’t reply back
and the weeks pass by
i am finishing my sentence
without a formal judgment
Here they don’t give us food
my family can’t come to give me food
and it is hard for me to feed my child
they give you an onion per week
and i can’t split it in five
also two carrots and one zucchini.

Every fifteen days the give us half a cup of polenta

and a punch of salt
once a month a box of pasta and oil
I don’t have food to feed my child
he is going to eat me
It is hard to get him diapers
I don’t have any cleaning products
the patio is a rat’s nest

30
and I don’t have enough to clean it
if the child doesn’t have diarrhea, he is snotty
and here the doctors say whatever
the lack of cleanliness is tough
It is a lot that I’m going through
and nobody asks me if I am okay or not
my child is having a hard time
and I think it is unfair
I also have a four year old girl and a six year old boy
who are outside and need me
my baby its not having a good time
apparently my defender is going to solve this
I was on hunger strike for a month
and they didn’t care
I have a three year sentence
I don’t have a formal judgment, I am almost done
I want an authorization to take my son out
I stay here, fulfill what I have left
but I want my son to get out
I want his aunt to take him
so he can be with his siblings
I want him to get out
I have the score to be able to go
I have 10-5 but they don’t update my scoring
and that would give me the early release
we are six mothers in this wing

31
that haven’t left yet
we are in different units
and they don’t put us together
they say they can’t.

32
Stancy

Caí en cana4 –as they say here– in 2013

I am colombian
now there is no school, no courses, I don’t like that
I understand but everything becomes more cruel
I can only go to school to make face masks
there are two units
that joined the strike
because there are 20 mothers
who have not received house arrest
there are people with HIV
and there are adult people that haven’t left
i proposed the supervisor that we could make face
masks

I am here because of robbery, I take responsibility for it

but the police set me up
we don’t even have an investigation
I never shot
none of us had
in the trial we were given 18 years
they didn’t have proof

4
Landed in jail

33
there were no victims
I think we were seat up
because of discrimination
because we are from another country
and that bothers them.

In 2014 i was under house arrest

with a bracelet
when i was under house arrest
I couldn’t take my kid to the hospital
I couldn’t buy diapers
I didn’t have anyone to ask to buy me food
up to the point that I ended up missing prison
I wanted to go to Colombia
and I went there
because I was pregnant
before leaving, my brother was killed
so I had to bury him
I got off the bus straight to funeral home
to bury my brother
I was in Colombia for one year supporting my family
my younger sister got a lung disease
it was a very hard year for everyone
untilI I was captured by the INTERPOL in 2015
they take me to prison for a year and a half
to a prison in colombia

34
I asked them to leave me in that prision
knowing that they had set me up
I wanted to stay there, close to my family
I fought so that i could stay imprisoned in Colombia
but it didn’t happen, I was taken to Argentina in
2017
they took me out from colombia
I lost weight, I got a vesicular disease
I was not accustomed to Argentinian food
they didn’t want to operate me
I complained, I couldn’t bear it anymore
they refused to give me a diet.
Here, you are on your own
I lost 12 kilos…
Hang on for a minute, they are roll calling
ok, I am back.
I had surgery last January
I had a hearing in October
they didn’t want to listen to me.
I told them my cause was rigged
but nothing happened, the appeal office is very slow
we foreigners have to pay 50% of the sentence
and then go back to the country
I told them I have nothing here.

If someone asks me

35
I tell them I don’t regret it
because I got my son from all this.
It’s been three years since I am here in the unit.
At that time, I didn’t have a firm sentence
and I appealed now I am in process
at some point, it was useful for me to escape.

Now I need to sign a sentence

I am a strong person
I know that what I did brought me consequences
but I have paid triple.
Now with Coronavirus
it is very hard.
Now we are seeing things going back to normal
we are getting used to it.
On March 11th, when the strict quarantine was es-
tablished,
it was exasperating,
I thought I would never see my children again.
I show my family that I am okay,
that I am strong, but sometimes I get depressed.
We don’t have anything to do
now I got a bit motivated
with making masks, I am a knitting teacher
of twelve girls.

36
We are struggling because there are no visits.
If you go to men’s prisons there is always a line,
here, a few people come to visit.

I get sad and think on the next day

that I can’t fall.
I want to go back to Colombia.

If the virus gets into the prison, how do we fight

against it?
There’s not even medication for a normal cold
we don’t have any defenses.

Here there are kids,

doing things for them keeps me motivated.
I knit, because there is no money
we barter
and that’s how we stay afloat.
I try to have a routine
as if I was
outside of prison.
It makes me depressed to lie in bed all day.

I think I have paid many times for this sentence.

37
Naty

I have a daughter of two years and two months.

Right now i’m trying
to negotiate house arrest.
I have no address, I have five kids outside
they are with my mother-in-law.
When I was in jail for two months
before coming to the penitentiary, i had a private lawyer
he made me do the psychological, the psychiatric
and criminal psychiatric tests.
My court is in Lomas
and the tests were in La Plata.
I was pregnant at that time
everything went well for me.
My mother-in-law gave the address of her house
so i could help her with my children
she thought my tests would go wrong.
When the police showed up with a social worker
to check on the house
she insulted the social worker
saying she wouldn’t feed another mouth
and they left.
I have no other address
I haven’t spoken to my family for fifteen years

38
I tried talking to them
to see if they would give me an address
but they did not reply.
I have no address.
I had gotten the address of a shelter
but I lost communication with the people
it seemed that it was a church
that it was a women’s shelter
but I found out that they all lived together
crossing paths.
And I want to live alone with my daughter.
I don’t want to live with men
because I had horrible experiences.
I have been incarcerated for two years and nine months
they gave me twelve years
but the defender appealed, and my case is in cassation.
I didn’t even know about it, I’m waiting for the con-
viction
but I did not know my defender appealed
and she told me that I will get less.
Makes me want to get an address
I may go to a home, but I don’t have the address.
I’m still waiting
if a place shows up.
I do the best I can
I have my days that I am bad

39
I have no communication with them
and that hits me.
My mother-in-law got a restraining order against me
recently my husband spoke to her
that I needed to know about them.
Now I can talk, but every so often.
I found out that a year ago
two of my children disappeared
my sister-in-law spoke to me in secret
I told her to be honest, I saw the MISSING photo of
my children
I asked her: why didn’t they tell me?
We were looking with the cops, she told me.
I asked them to let me know, they told me:
why would we tell you
If you can’t do anything in there
But I wanted to know, I am their mother.
Imagine if something happens to them, I got really upset
put yourself in my place.
They showed up two days later
I did not learn anything
I don’t know anything about what happened to them.
I have a 5 year old girl
who has a developmental delay
she can’t start school, they reject her.
She had a heart operation, talks very little

40
She started eating at 2 years old, only drank milk.
I should be there for her, taking care of her.

We want the kids who are here to come out

because there are no medications
sometimes there isn’t even ibuprofen
and they mistreat you.
My daughter has bronchospasm
the medicine is running out
there is almost none left
What do I do if it runs out?
Sometimes on the weekends there are no pediatricians.

We are in trouble
with the kitchen managers:
they are mean to us, they don’t want to give us al-
most anything
we had to talk to the head cook.
In the unit we are five
they give us two cups of polenta
and it is not enough for us.

I don’t have visitors

nobody can deposit money for me
sometimes I have to barter
because I don’t even have enough sugar.

41
I want a house
so I can leave
to be with my son.

42
Fer

We are scared
we take the necessary precautions.
We went out to sew
But we went out without the staff and we were left alone
staff opens and closes only.
We clean the unit with bleach
and we ask our families to bring us more
because it is not enough
when we return from sewing we wash ourselves
we get in the shower
several times a day.
We take care of ourselves more than they take care of us,
they don’t wear masks
there are always issues with the penitentiary staff
there are things that are unacceptable
we have no one to talk to, no one listens to us
you say something to a supervisor and they don’t care
they don’t listen to you
it’s like we are a number
Even if we are locked up
we need to be heard, there are no psychologists
our minds do not stop spinning
and it hurts us

43
we get really upset
Even now I’m crying.
My mom died while I was inside
sometimes I’m afraid I won’t go home
because I left my children alone
they are with their older brothers
who get high
I feel like they pay my sentence twice as much.
They declared me a repeat offender
because they didn’t believe me
and my children were left with the oldest
who is 20 years old
I have eight children, the three oldest
they did not take over
and I don’t have any of them here.
I have been detained for 4 years
they gave me 7 years in here
I do not have a firm sentence
I keep appealing.
I have an official defender
but they don’t take care of me
I asked for an habeas corpus and it was rejected by
the court
I don’t have any disease
I’m not over 70 years old
I want to go out to take care of my children.

44
Nobody cares that they are alone
the judges don’t care.
Being deprived of freedom is so nasty
you lose your family
you are unable to take them to school.
I had a rough childhood
I was abandoned when I was little.
All my life I was ignorant hehe.
Nobody sent me to school
my mom abandoned me at 5 years old
I did not have an ID document until I was 14 years old
and that impacts you, you feel discriminated against.
I was ashamed to tell others
I went to school without shoes
plus I had no ID document, it was too much.
They took me with an aunt
and she put my dead uncle’s shoes on me
they were pointed men’s shoes
and they all made fun of me
it was traumatic to go to school
going meant to suffer.

The father of my oldest children

dragged me to the door of a cabaret
and he did not respect me as the mother of my children
or as anything.

45
I did not want to go there, I did not like it
and he beat me up.
I had to go, I ran away
I was moving around with three children
and everyone abused me.
My brother-in-law wanted to abuse me because I
lived in his house.
Then I met people who robbed
and I went out to steal with them, these are the
things that happened to me.
The first time I spoke it was with you
with YoNoFui, if not, I wouldn’t have spoken.

I would have liked Heidi’s life,5 ha.

To be in the field, to have a cool place
the family that I never had
but they didn’t give me the opportunities
they pushed me to do whatever.
My sister would tell me, close your eyes for 5 minutes
and you have money
but I didn’t want to, it wasn’t my decision.

5
Heidi is a reference to the world-known cartoon Heidi, Girl
of the Alps

46
When I came out after the first sentence
I studied pastry and bakery and nobody gave me a job
I was broke
and my sister was selling drugs.

When i came out the first time

I made myself an open wooden house
I lined it with cardboard, friends helped me
they gave me metal sheets and braces
and I took my children.
They give you a hand but there are some selling
and you get hooked, it’s a circle you can’t get out of.

I was desperate
for the kids to have shoes
I saw them all dirty
and the psychologist told me:
there are children who do not have feet
do not suffer.
But I got upset
because they didn’t have shoes.

Here I survive because my son buys me some things

I try never to ask him, I do have food here.
All the girls appreciate me
but here there is everything.

47
Yesterday I went to sewing and there are two girls
who fought
and it upsets me, I don’t like it.
I don’t like it when we mistreat each other.
We are at war with the police, not with each other.
The police are the executioner.

I always grew up listening

that war on the police
respect for respect
good morning, good night
and nothing more.
I don’t like to fill myself with hate
but they provoke you.

It’s good that the organizations come in here

because they make you reflect.
Before I did not care about certain things
but it’s important, I learned to listen
I learned to unfold
before I did not used to open up, but now I am able
to talk
I can say what happens to me and what I feel.

48
Lourdes

I have been under house arrest for two years and 4

months
I have less than a year left.
For me to be at home is to be with my children.
My girl is 6 years old.
everything I do has to be from home
I can’t go out to work. They won’t give me any leave
permits.
I am constantly locked up.
YoNoFui gave me the opportunity to leave my house
when there was no pandemic.
For now I live in my brother’s house
he helps me financially
I sell some products via the internet.
I am of Peruvian nationality
but I have lived in Argentina for fifteen years.
I don’t have any assistance from the state, nobody
helps me.
The house arrest was given to me because of my
daughter
It’s maddening to come home and not be able to do
anything.

49
I applied twice for permits because I need to work
but they tell me no
which is the same as being in Ezeiza.
I appreciate being with my children.
It makes me sad that I can’t go to work
I lived in Ezeiza for five months
You could work there, get money for your family,
but here it is impossible.
I have no one to help me.
They don’t let me take my children to the hospital
either,
unless it is very serious.
I have a bracelet with GPS
at first I felt that I wanted
to hide it all the time.
I hid it within my clothes.
At first it hurt me, now I got used to it.
Sometimes I see myself in the mirror and I start crying,
it’s exasperating.

The GPS was because one of my daughters

turned fifteen
and we celebrated her birthday in the yard
the GPS does not reach there, so I asked that that day
permission to be in the yard
and they said no.

50
The next day they put the GPS on me.
I can’t go to the yard.
When I go off the radio frequency
they call me immediately
and they send a document to the lawyer.
I can’t even go outside to dry my clothes
not three or four minutes.
I can’t go to the yard, I can’t take out the trash.
I want to go to work
to collect money for my children.
I am a makeup artist
before the pandemic I wanted to work
I had a set up to offer hair services here at my house
But I requested permission and they didn’t give it to
me either.

When I came to live in Buenos Aires

I worked informally because I was undocumented
and I felt discriminated against
People used to tell me to go back to Peru
But I have tried to stay out of it.
I avoided talking when I went to work
because I was afraid of being discriminated against.

When i was arrested

I thought my world was falling apart

51
but I talked to my friends and they supported me.
The confinement is exasperating,
it’s distressing, my children demand a lot
I try to make time pass as quickly as possible.

I would like for the people

who are deprived of freedom
under house arrest
to be able to have an income.
They don’t give us a chance
we have no benefit.

YoNoFui is like a ray of hope

in a moment that I did not even imagine,
they called me and told me I could sign up
I went there to study
and besides that, they are people
who have been through the same
people who accept you with your mistakes
and I love my compañeras very much.
We have few opportunities
to meet people
and it is essential.

52
Geral

I don’t sleep at night, I am on the cleaning shift

and nobody wakes me up, nobody warns me
so I stay up until 6 AM
and I sleep when I come back

Here there are several problems, they touch us

while doing searches
they touch our things, our unit was
quarantined from day one
and we are underpaid
they pay us $A 84 an hour
We make dolls and do carpentry.
Now they take us out in shifts
Last month I made $A 800.
Cleaning is the job that pays the least
The unhealthy work is the least recognized.
I clean the module.
In the morning I do the corridor
but I also do the waste part
that is always full of worms.
At night there are rats
very occasionally they give us gloves
that are more rotten than the garbage cans.

53
In my previous sentence
I found a syringe
and if something happens to me no one responds.
It’s all pissed and shitted by rats
it is awful
the necessary conditions are not being respected.
The food comes with flies.

My dad supported me and was there for me

sometimes my friends visit
because I have nothing
they make deposits to me.
Nobody can survive with four thousand pesos a
month
prices in the canteen
which is the place where we purchase
are quite expensive.
We can only buy in the canteen once a week
We also have a digital store
that works since before the pandemic.
They don’t give us hygiene products.
and they provide things once a month.
We do cleaning twice a day
bleach is not enough.
At the center, they don’t listen

54
The service is a disaster
they took me out of the unit to the hearing
then they took me straight to solitary confinement
a closed room, you have nothing
you look at the ceiling and the walls
And you look at the ceiling and the walls again.
They give you one hour outside
where you communicate, the atmosphere is horrible
there is too much dirt
on a mattress where seven hundred people slept
it is eaten by rats.
Here they handle things like nothing matters
here the quarantine does not exist.
It is not a treatment center as they say,
so that we can get out better.
It’s not that.
From the first moment
They ask you if you work or study
and if you study, work hours are deducted
it’s ridiculous.
From the moment the psychologist only sees you
once a month
and the doctors do not see you
it ceased to be a treatment center
it started to be a punishment center
a torture center.

55
I survived holding on
it’s complex
because the police separates you
but being with your compañeras is the best.
It’s a new way of relating
we tell each other everything
When you don’t feel like anything, they pick you up.
There are many girls to lean on
there are new girls
living this for the first time
and maybe they make you have a good time
and do not mistreat you.
We try to lift each other, to teach ourselves
Inside all this shit, we are partners.
We build strength, from the fence to the inside
the charges don’t matter
we are all suffering the same
the pettiness is useless.
We are not one to judge anyone.
We all do what we can.
On this side we are all the same.
From the gate to the inside we are going through the
same
from the gate to the outside, war on the police.

56
Tinta Revuelta is a publishing collective integrated
by lesbians, bisexuals, women and non-binaries,
that emerges from the Writing and Communication
Workshop of the YoNoFui organization. Many of us
were deprived of freedom, others were not but we
all find in writing the possibility of inventing a new
way of living and being together. It is through writ-
ing, reading and the collective productions, that we
make a map of our lives, of our trajectories, we his-
toricize them, we dialogue with our other contexts
and with our emergencies.

We thank Reunión and Dani Zelko for inspiring to listening.

Los seis relatos que componen este libro son el
resultado de largas conversaciones y de una
escucha atenta a nuestras compañeras privadas
de libertad en cárceles provinciales, federales y
en arresto domiciliario. Si bien los relatos están
atravesados por la realidad y la urgencia que
impuso la pandemia, muestran la violencia
estructural y el abandono, por parte del estado,
de las personas que habitan nuestras cárceles.

COLECCIÓN ESCRITURAS AMOTINADAS

tintarevuelta.yonofui.org
Redes: @TintaRevuelta
tintarevuelta@yonofui.org.ar