The Shitty Transfer

I woke up this morning around 4am. Most of my meagre possessions packed in a sports bag.  I’m lying on my bunk wondering what could be waiting for me at this new prison called Zonder Water. I wonder if I will ever have control over my future again… at this point in time it feels as if Correctional Services has all the control over me and it is very frustrating, especially considering that they dictate things I do not want to do…   I used to think of prison guards as low class cretins. I’ll tell you something: in my opinion the majority are – but I’m also sure there are honest hardworking men & woman in the Department…

I hear keys, my door rattles and oh- fuck… JB is the Boer who came to collect and escort me to the reception area for my transfer. We never did get along since the day he busted my ass upon admission to prison. He just smiles…

Down at the reception area there are fifty inmates waiting for the transfer and being processed. Processed, meaning having a pair of short-step chain secured around your ankles and then a longer chain that joins everybody together attached to it… this makes it quite difficult, especially if the idiot who secured the shot-steps made them too tight! Once we’re all lined up like cattle ready for slaughter we are escorted out of the building to the Gomba. For a brief moment I get some fresh-air… unpolluted by prison stink, until the Gomba’s door shuts. Picture this scene, with short-steps one can hardly walk without falling over. Now we are fifty inmates chain-linked… battling to move synchronized and caring our bags, boxes, radios and what ever else we own, I’m sure it resembles a Youth League rally except for the chains off corse…   

The Gomba is just a truck with converted shell to carry inmates. It is silver in colour and resembles a giant breadbin. To get into this monstrosity, one has to negotiate a step up literally six inches higher that you can separate our feet from each other that makes for an interesting entrance. Once everyone literally fell into place, the door slams closed and you could hear a padlock being secured. I realize something…” I need to crap!” a problem of uncomfortable proportions!

The drive towards our new home away from home, starts north in the direction of Pretoria, we can’t see out of the Gomba and could only guess what the world outside prison looks like by now. It’s about 15minutes into our journey end I really have to go… I am in real pain, what to do, what to do??? I try to wait it out and keep my insides from overflowing… to make a long and potentially gross story a little shorter, I had to take a dump in a plastic bag- while being chained to 49 other inmates- this in a windowless truck whilst being transferred. You didn’t think that the Boere would actually stop next to the road or at the ultra city or let me take a dump in the daisies, did you? Trust me, you did not want to be there… I had to hold on to this bag for about another hour and a half until we reached our new holiday camp. That’s what I call a shitty transfer!

Finally! We slow down, there are some wild turns, a couple of nasty speed bumps and some more turns and then we stop. Some time later the door is finally opened and we are told to get out. This is a reverse process of the near catastrophic climb in, except now I am also caring a bag of shit. I stumble, but regain my footing, at the expense of some skin being grinded off my ankles… safe at last and fresh air…

Zonderwater… cool! Doesn’t look like your typical prison. It actually reminds me of a boarding school to be honest. But for now, where is the nearest dumpster? I can’t find it and decided to deposit my precious load back into the Gomba whilst no one was looking. Sorry, I wasn’t raised that way, it’s just I thought it to be the right thing at the time to do…!!! If all goes according to plan I will tell you about this new prison and the momo’s in it in my next update. Adios.

Quote of the week: “If most people said what’s on their minds, they would be speechless…”