The Reclusión de Mujeres is a women’s prison in Pereira, one of Colombia’s most violent cities. The institution houses 252 adults as well as their children below the age of 3. All day long there is a cacophony of slamming doors, shouting, singing, radios and crying; silence comes only during the night hours of 8:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. For exercise, inmates have two covered courtyards with scarcely a glimpse of the sky.
This might not seem the best environment for meditation. But to one social worker in the prison, Vipassana was exactly what the Reclusión de Mujeres needed. Surprisingly, the prison director agreed. After a staff member attended a course in Medellin, the planning work began.
The course site was a self-contained area within the facility, containing a meditation hall with adjacent accommodation and washrooms. Arrangements were made for a vegetarian diet. The basics were in place. Dates were set for March 2011.
Still, when the assistant teacher and four servers were allowed to enter the site on Day 0, they found a huge amount of work to be done. They began cleaning and organizing the site, finishing at 11:00 p.m. They also helped the many illiterate inmates to complete their registration forms. By the time everything was ready, it was too late to meditate that evening. Instead, the course started on the morning of Day 1 with the opening instructions for Anapana.
As in prison courses everywhere, there were plenty of challenges. Virtually all of the students knew each other or were close friends; they found it hard not to interact. One of the servers was a doctor and could deal with minor health issues, but some meditators had to go out of the course site for scheduled medical appointments. The teacher and servers stayed in a separate building at the back of the prison; every time they went from there to the meditation hall, they had to undergo a security check that included a body search.
Naturally, illiteracy was not an issue during the course. On Day 11, however, the plan had been to screen the film Changing from Inside, about a course for women inmates in the United States. The dialogue was all in English with Spanish subtitles. Now how would the inmates understand? There was a simple solution: one old student read the subtitles aloud. Some of the meditators cried as they watched the film. Later, many of the women spoke about the course and the powerful impact it had had on them.
Thirty-five women completed the course. Every week, a group of old students from the city of Pereira enter the prison to meditate with them.
Old students after the first prison course in Pereira, Colombia
(Courtesy: International Vipassana Newsletter, March 2011 issue)