My unexpected life journey

After the humiliating strip search, I gave my statement several times.  I told them the truth which they didn’t believe.  I even spoke with a Brazilian police woman who worked directly with the DEA here in the States.  I told them what I could but it wasn’t much because the majority of the information I had on the “Marcus” was on my phone.  They had taken my phone away when I was arrested and wouldn’t let me near it again.  I know that is because they figured I would delete any incriminating evidence from the phone but I wouldn’t have done that.  I would give them the information that I had whether it was bogus information that “Marcus” had given me.  I wasn’t conflicted about trying to get him brought to justice.  I was very hurt by the intense manipulation that occurred throughout the time I was chatting with him.  I was very angry with him as well as myself.  I couldn’t believe that someone could do that to another person.  I was so hurt and trying to convince myself that it was all a bad dream and that this fake persona was a real person.  Soon thereafter, I had to realize that I was taken for a fool and taken advantage of in the most heinous way.

I stayed in the cells at the airport for 5 days.  I barely sleep and really didn’t eat or drink anything.  Wasn’t allowed to take a shower because they didn’t bring any soap or towels to use.  They hardly even checked on the prisoners that were there with me. There were several men and another woman.  She was in my cell.  We didn’t really talk.  We were both in shock.  Finally, I was sent to a women’s prison there would took the majority of international prisoners.  I didn’t know any Portuguese at all so after a while, I was moved to a building that housed the foreigners.  There I was able to talk in English with other people from other countries.  I got a job in the prison after a few days and that was because the embassy came to visit me.  Medical hadn’t looked at me not about other department other than at intake where we had to strip again and were given prison clothes.  Beige pants, beige sweatshirt and white t shirts.  We were also given linens and a blanket for our beds.  No pillows though.  You learn quickly how to improvise with things to provide a little privacy while you shower and a support for your head amongst other things.

They did head counts in the morning when we woke up and then at night.  We were locked in our cells from 7 pm to 7 am I believe.  Didn’t really know the time because we didn’t have clocks that were readily available to us.  If you worked, which I did, you were at work from 8 am to 4:30 pm.  Came back to our assigned buildings and are dinner immediately and then relaxed as much as you can and hung out with “friends”.

I stayed at this prison from the end of October 2019 until beginning of April 2020.  I knew that the Brazilian prisoners were taking about me behind my back.  But I didn’t care.  At long as they kept their hands to themselves, things would be okay and I wouldn’t have to defend myself and possibly get into more trouble than what I was already in at the time.  There was one incident that happened but it wasn’t intentional.  January 1, 2020, we were in the building and people decided to do a major cleaning of the different floors.  This included soaping and rinsing the floors.  I was called to come downstairs because the guards wanted to see me. I wore a pair of flip flops and headed to the stairs.  As I started to descend the stairs, t someone pushed some water down the stairs at the same time.  The water made my flip flop come off my left foot and I slipped down the stairs.  I hit the corner of the top stair with my left hip and started going down the stairs at speed.  Somehow I was turned around and was going head first down the stairs.  There was a turn of direction on the stairs which meant there was a corner and my neck and head were flying toward it.  I couldn’t allow down.  I just knew I was going to die from a broken neck or skull fracture.  But fortunately some of the other inmate were able to help me slow down and I stopped right at the corner with my neck up against it.  I was in so much pain!!!!  I stayed in that position for a little while so that I could do a self assessment of where I was injured most.  Finally, I was able to rotate into an upright position with the help of other people and two other inmate helped me to get to the infirmary.

I was put into a room and told to lay down which was excruciating.  I was in that room for what seemed like forever but no nurse or doctor ever came to check on me.  I knew my hip was really injured as well as my knee but it wasn’t as bad as my hip.  I eventually forced myself to move and get up and check to see if any nurses were outside the room.  When they saw that, they assumed that I was just fine and there were no problems.  I tried telling them but I couldn’t speak Portuguese so they didn’t understand.  I did eventually soak with a doctor who spoke rough English and he looked at knee but wouldn’t look at my hip.  He freaked out when I talked about my hip.  I told him it was wise than my knee but he just left the room.  I was given a shot of anti-inflammatory in my other but cheek which rivaled the actual injury in the left hip in the pain it caused when injected.  I made myself walk back to the building and nearly tried on the way because I had difficulty raising my left foot over the curb of the road.  I got back to the building and entered.  I told one of the prisoners who spoke both English and Portuguese what they said and then I hobbled up the stairs and went to my cell.  Everyone was there and asked me what was said in the infirmary and how I was feeling.  A couple of them had pain pills since the infirmary only have me that one shot.  I used those pills at night so I could sleep a little.  As I was getting ready for my shower that night, I asked my cell mate if she would look to see how bad the bruising was.  She gasped and started crying.  We had a small mirror in the room and she showed me.  My whole left butt cheek was a big, black bruise.  Before this incident happened, I had been sleeping on the top bunk but she switched with me because of this injury and I was so grateful.  I couldn’t sit down normally – the pain was so severe.

The next day, another prisoner was joking around and asked me why was I still limping.  She smacked my left hip and I crumpled to the floor.  She asked why did I do that and I took her to my cell and showed her.  That’s when she realized that I was far more injured than anyone believed.  She took me directly back to the infirmary after taking with the guards and I showed them the top of my hip.  I’m the information, the nurses took a look at my hip, have me another shot in the butt and have me some feel to rub onto the bruising at least twice a day to help numb the pain.  That is all that I was given by the infirmary.  If the other prisoners hadn’t had a stash of pain medications I wouldn’t have made it through that healing time as well as I did.  Slowly the pain subsided but the bruise remained for months.

I’ll end here for now.  It all seems like it was yesterday still.  The next part, I’ll talk about the day I went to court.