Christmas is not the best of time of year to be Imprisoned
in the
Christmas is not the best time of year to be in prison, not that there ever is a best time but just the thought of trying to drum up enthusiasm for a celebration of any sort when we are thousands of miles from those that we love leaves us a bit cold hearted to say the least.
The feeling of indifference is made easier still because we are living in 90 degree temperatures and in the midst of a predominantly Buddhist culture that does not celebrate the birth of Christ.
That’s not to say they wouldn’t if given the chance. It’s just that declaring yet another national holiday for the Thais at Christmas would mean that those whose job it is to plan the country’s myriad of other national holidays and annual events would never be in the office at all and the whole thing would collapse in on itself. This is a country that likes it’s time off!
Despite all this we were reluctant to ignore it altogether and so we decided that the best way to mark the occasion, as with any, would be by being able to bang a few coffee mugs of ‘good cheer’ together to wish each other good fortune and perhaps raise a few to ‘absent friends’. The necessary equipment was mustered up and soon we had a few gallons of promisingly ‘high octane’ sugar water on the go, secreted around the place.
“Hubble Bubble toil and…… we just had to watch out for the “TROUBLE”!!!
Some of the other foreign lads had decided to have a ‘ whip round’, all throwing in some cash to order the ingredients through the coffee shop and knock themselves up a special feed for Christmas day itself, but with a Frenchman who claimed he knew how to cook, an Israeli handling the funds and an acne face Khazakstani kid given the job of ‘eyeing’ the potatoes, we decided to duck out and stick with our ‘ladyboy’ cook ‘Tha’.
During her formative years ‘Tha’ was probably influenced a lot more by her mother than her father. Standing at 6 feet tall and desperately in need of some friendly pointers into the art of shaving, she is nevertheless, a dab hand when it comes to handling a hot ‘Wok’ and a bottle of cooking oil (so I’ve been told!)
In terms of Christmas snacks and goodies, we had already been taken care of by our wonderful friends in the ‘British Women’s Group’. In the fortnight leading up to Christmas they had sent in some tasty treats via parcel post which amongst other things included Christmas cake, puddings, custard, biscuits and crisps. There was even some of those daft Santa hats and a few squeaky balloons
Other people had also made the effort to send us their well wishes over the Christmas period. We received many cards and letters of support and would like to thank all of you who were kind enough to send them. We will try to answer all of you but please give us time. No doubt we will still be opening cards next February if the mail system here does not improve in any way.
A week or so before Christmas I was helping Steve to wrap a present of two cute little teddy bears, sent in so that he could send them out again to his son ‘Oak and his wife’s niece, ‘New’ at their house in the poor northern province of ‘Loey’. The bears could not
be wrapped individually because they would need to be looked at and given the once over by the ‘Bear Inspector’ working in the mail room.
The only way to send them both as a wrapped present was to find a scrap of colored Christmas paper and glue it around an ordinary A4 business envelope. That way the outgoing parcel could still have its contents inspected.
It was as we were working on the finer points of this glueing operation that I finally felt that warm glow. That real Christmassy feeling that we all know and that I have never felt during my already 3 previous Christmas’s in prison. I smiled to myself as I considered the time and concentration we were spending getting the paper glued just right onto the envelope so that it looked at its most inviting, and compared it with the seconds it would take an excited ‘Oak’ and his little cousin to rip it open on Christmas morning.
I realized then that Steve would have spent a year getting it looking its best had it meant that it would show his love for his son in any greater proportion.
I was glad to be a small part of the wee lads happiness and not for the first time that day my thoughts drifted to my own son and the Christmases past in the lap and love of my own family.
Disaster struck a couple of days before Christmas when a Thai prisoner inadvertently came across a large stash of ‘Hooch’ and in typical Thai fashion fell over himself in his haste to go bleating to the nearest screw to ‘Grass’. Soon the whole area was being ‘shaken down’ by a gang of Trustee Blueshirt bastards who eventually seized every last drop hidden around the place. Not only ours but other groups too. We watched powerless as drum after drum of, of by now, highly potent fruit juice was poured away into the open sewer channels at our feet. The fumes wafting up told us all we needed to know about what happy time we could have had, had it not been for this sniveling piece of shit who alerted (I.E. woke up) the screws.
It had, at last been the first time in years that the gutter had seen anything remotely like a cleaning fluid passing down it, but that was of little consolation. There were some very long faces for the rest of that day and people could be heard muttering under their breaths; “Game Over!” “Shit!” or “That’s f***ing that then!”
Christmas day eventually arrived we were opened up late at around
“Don’t they know they f***ing got it all the other day?” A voice piped up as hundreds of us jostled down the narrow concrete stairs and out into the yard.
“Well obviously they f***ing liked it didn’t they! The bleeding’ Pissheads are back for more!” came the terse reply.
First things first, coffee, and for most a fag or two, to ease into the day without too much of a bang. Then it was heads down to decide what our Christmas dinner was actually going to consist of. ‘Tha’ had had the foresight to order a couple of kilos of chicken the day before, unusual for a Thai, (but let me tell you, ‘Tha’ is pretty unusual too!) As soon as we found out that the coffee shop had some potatoes for sale the discussion was over. It was going to be chicken and chips with fried eggs, and the piece de resistance, a tin of Heinz baked beans. I’d been coveting them and had been saving them for just such an occasion after a British Airways aircrew member very kindly parceled them into me during her first ever stop over in
3 hours after giving ‘Tha’ very careful instructions in how to make proper chips (‘French fries’ are for woofters!) and heat up a tin of beans (she was already skilled in frying eggs and chicken) we were amazed to be presented with an almost perfect example of a good fry-up. The chicken and eggs were done to a tee, the chips were golden and chunky the way we Brits like’em and the beans made the whole nosh-up sublime. The bread was quickly brought out for later ‘mopping up’ operations, we cracked a cold coke each (worst luck!) and got to work on the feast.
The meal was delicious and ‘Tha’ was suitably indulged with our sincerest compliments and a piece of Christmas cake for good measure. I always find it pays off to stay on her good side.
Elsewhere in the building others had been celebrating in different ways. The Christmas day church service was being held in one of the outbuildings with, not surprisingly, an unusually high attendance regular Sunday services are organized and attended by three main groups of Christians; the Nigerians, the Chinese and a loose collection of different Hill Tribe people.
However, today was Christmas day and, as is traditional in Bangkwang, the day that hundreds of Thai prisoners who for the rest of the year are Buddhist, convert to Christianity. But it’s only for the day and by Boxing Day they will have reverted back to their previous faith. But why?
Could it be that attending ‘church’ on Christmas day yields more than a few ;freebies’, laid on by the various Christian and Missionary groups working (or is that paying?) to bring their particular brand of faith to prisoners in Bangkwang.
Call me a cynic but surely its more than coincidence that church attendance by Thai’s increases by a huge percentage whenever word gets out that stuff will be given free to whoever turns up. I don’t see many Thai’s converting to Islam at the time of Ramadan so something other than God must be the main attraction? Ultimately though, who can blame them when their own system has let them down so badly, providing them with nothing but electric light, polluted water and animal grade red rice?
Besides, they were going to have to sit through hours of unrestrained ‘babble’ before claiming their free soap and bags of broken biscuits. As on normal Sundays, this service was being lead by a member from each group and each in turn would read the next part in their own language over a microphone being passed between them. This made the whole service roughly 4 times longer. Four because other than the 3 starkly contrasting languages of Ibu, Chinese and a Hill Tribe dialect that I couldn’t identify, the Nigerian leader would go on to read the ‘Lesson’ once again in English just for good measure. It was time to beat a hasty retreat, find somewhere shady and relax until lockdown.
The time has dragged it’s feet since Christmas. It has been a drag all week, made worse by the screws winding down for their New Year break typically at this time of year doing even less than usual, if that is actually possible. The first thing to suffer is the delivery of mail. We’ve had none since December 22nd.
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