It had to be a bad dream. Petrified, not from the premeditated assault on me, but from the sight of the guard. I was expecting the malnourished one, but this guard was a splitting image of the Disney Princess Fiona, only uglier. She was enormous, creepy and hideous. A pale-skinned ogre with a mouthful of missing teeth in uniform.

Even through the revolting sight of the never-once-shaven legs, the multi-coloured varicose veins spiralling up them were not inconspicuous. I wondered what she looked like down south.

The Irony: She had the voice of a doped out Minnie mouse . Something was not right in her larynx. My first reaction was to hold my breath and stab myself with my fingernails in order to suppress the convulsions of impending laughter, but the pounding in my arm from where I’d landed elbow-first did the magic.

The more she kept squeaking about what had happened, the deeper I dug my nails into my palms. I was relieved when she produced her intercom to radio help.

The day before:

I was perched on the window sill, taking in every inch of the sweating adult male mowing the lawn. It was so obvious a day’s job had stretched well into four.

I’m not sure if he’d bribed a guard to let him keep mowing the already mowed lawn, but he cut that grass under my window for days on end. Every other minute, he’d stop and we’d exchange wide grins. For the first time, I was so happy to be a detainee on the ground floor. We couldn’t talk though, being surrounded by cameras, and every time a guard walked by I had to jump off the window sill.

Baldie had run out of cigarettes the day before, outrightly demanding a pack she promised to return when her daughter visited the following week.

The Australian’s voice echoed through my head: “guard them well so you can trade for something you need. It’s your only survival kit”

How she knew I had smokes was evident they’d been through my belongings while I was at the doctor’s because they never once came out of their hiding place in my bag.

Being stripped of my self-confidence from the day I got arrested, I just couldn’t bring myself to ask her what she’d give me in return for a pack, and even worse, how to ask in her own language, without coming across as arrogant.

The menacing stare on the thug’s face didn’t leave me room to think about it. I went for my bag, emptying all the contents, and to my chagrin, there was only a box left- an empty box, out of three boxes the Australian had gone out of her way to bestow me. Whoever nicked them had been kind enough to leave two sticks.

I was very livid and very hurt. My heart sunk when I noticed a chocolate bar I’d been saving for bad news from the courts was gone too.

I’m not sure if they were for or against me, but they begun yelling things I couldn’t decipher. The alcoholic limped over to our corner to put in her two cents. It was mayhem. Heaven knows why and what they’d been on about. Clearly, I was the one robbed, and it was none other than the two fools ranting and raving. I knew for a fact the hunchback and druggie wouldn’t dare come that close, and the alcoholic was always content with emptying all the ashtrays to make her own smokes with paper and whatever two or three tobacco leaves were left in the stubs.

On the brink of tears, more for the chocolate bar than anything else, I screamed “OK just shut the f*** up! I know it was you”! pointing my finger at no-one in particular.

Big mistake. I never in a million years thought they’d make that out. People tend to understand or even speak a foreign language when the need arises.

I didn’t see it coming. In a flash, the thug lunged at me, going for my throat. If the bald one hadn’t grabbed her from behind, I believe she would have snapped my neck in several places.

Immediate instincts told me to flee that corner and seek asylum in the next. The druggie and hunched back received me with open arms. The druggie had even been kind enough to go back and retrieve my beddings and belongings. She came back almost empty handed. My beddings and handbag were intact, but she’d forgotten to take the box containing my toiletries and other essentials.

That night, I slept with my eyes open.

The following morning after the roll call, I stumbled back to my bunk as I was still groggy from lack of sleep. I’d been dreaming of the handsome lawn-mower and how he’d started a prison riot, executed every guard and officer Al Qaeda style, broken down the cell door to rescue me and gallop away on a white steed all the way to Siberia were nobody would ever find us.

Just as he was helping me up the horse, I felt someone yank the dust-laden blankets off me, sending me into a sneezing frenzy, and dragging by my flimsy night shirt onto the cold floor.

Before landing, I’d grabbed the nearest thing within my reach to support my fall- it was the leg of a small table wedged in between the hunched back’s bunk and mine. This sent the table and all its contents crashing to the floor with me.

The sound of dangling keys outside the cell door, which implied a guard was barging in, sent the inmates scurrying back to their respective corners like rodents being set ablaze by a blow-torch.

That was when the ogre came in.

As I slowly came to, I looked around, noting the hunched back and druggie were nowhere in sight. Perhaps they’d gone for a walk, or gone to see the doctor, or gone upstairs for a shower, I don’t know why they decided to leave me unattended, exposing me to imminent assault by the thug.

A few seconds later, two other guards had come in, demanding answers as to what had happened. I was marched out of the cell and placed in an empty one.

After what seemed like hours, a lady dressed in plain clothes came in to see me.

The moment she opened her mouth to utter some words in the English language, I burst into tears. She gave me all the time I needed to calm down before she started her questioning, all the while smiling and telling me everything would be fine if I just told her what happened.

Now you really don’t need to watch Oz or Escape from Alcatraz in order to grasp the ten prison commandments, the first one being ‘THOU SHALT NOT SNITCH.

I knew better than to give up the thug. Through uncontrolled heavy sobs, I begged her to place me in another cell. She did her best to get me talking, even going as far as bribing me with an English novel and a few extra letter stamps if I ratted out the offender. Now the novel I could really do with- anything to keep me away from that window sill lusting after the lawn mower and creaming my knickers. The stamps, she could shove. They were of no use to me.

(Now I have to digress):

I don’t know about other foreign countries, but let me tell you about letter writing in Polish prisons.

It goes without saying: “When you’re in Poland, speak as the Poles speak”. if you do not have a good command of the Polish language, then you’re as good as fucked screwed.

All letters going in and out of correctional facilities are sent directly to the prosecutor’s office for censoring before delivery.

Normally, this takes a two or three week period. If you’re unlucky enough to be English, Spanish, German, you can be sure your letter will be delivered in three months.

The Prosecutor has to get a translator, maybe even a proof reader, to translate the letter into Polish langauge, then pass it on for delivery. I particularly feel sorry for prsioners from countries like say, Pakistan, Venezuela, Israel,North Korea- their letters never get delivered, because I doubt the Prosecutor would go through all that trouble to hunt for a Hebrew translator.

Letters and decisions from court on the other hand, are delivered within hours, at most the next day- in Polish language of course. They actually do go through the trouble of translating it, but the translation could take months.

So for instance, if you’ve received a decision from court saying you could appeal your case within seven days, you certainly couldn’t know, only after the translated copy  has been delivered months later, after which it would already be too late to appeal.

There was always an option of getting a Polish inmate to help compose a letter to speed up the censoring process, but HOW?

A few days after I was arrested in May, I wrote three letters; One to the Nigerian Embassy, another to my boss at work, and the last one to my roommates. I received the replies in September.

(Back on track:)

So I simply told her I was only having problems with the inmates because of the language barrier, and everything was just swell. She didn’t believe me, but she kept her own end of the bargain and went to fetch the novel.

I was so excited. Finally, something to keep my brain from going dead.

The ‘novel’ turned out to be an English King James Version of the New Testament Gideon’s Bible with translations into Polish and German.

I was crushed, literally. The Bible- the greatest sedative known to man, the scientifically proven cure for Insomnia.

I remember muttering under my breath “Terrific! Why don’t you just give me a lobotomy instead?”

Bible tucked under my arm, I was escorted back to my cell where the inmates were going about their business like nothing had happened. Before the Ogred guard left, she squeaked some kind of warning to them to behave accordingly or else…

I spent the rest of the day in a trance.

The next day brought a visitor.

There’s no place like home. It’s been a hell of a week, and I’m just glad it’s over.

I hope I can finally put that lousy episode behind me.

However, I did learn a valuable life lesson in there- NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING THROUGH IN LIFE, SOMEONE OUT THERE IS GOING THROUGH SO MUCH WORSE.

Just when I thought I’d reached the end of the road and it couldn’t get any worse, I came face to face with displaced refugees from Bosnia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and a host of other countries with jaw-breaking names I’ve never heard of in my life, who I could do nothing but weep profusely for.

Like I said before, this should make good material for my future blog entries, so I won’t give away too much. But I just feel so compelled to share what I saw and learnt in the asylum house with you.

This Bosnian woman had been arrested at the border for trying to cross into Belgium illegally with her husband and two toddlers. For some reason I couldn’t fathom, the border police had made her choose between her husband and kids- someone had to go back.

Without even giving it a thought, she chose her two girls, and she hasn’t seen or spoken to her husband in three years. How she ended up in Slovenia is beyond me. She’s been in the asylum house ever since and her decision for asylum is still pending.

An almost similar story with the Mongolian woman, except the entire family was intact, but they’ve been living in the same tiny room for 15 months now- Mother, father and two teenage girls.

The most shattering, a Kazakh single mother with a set of twins who she had in the asylum house some 2 years ago, recently underwent a mastectomy to have not one but both breasts removed to prevent her cancer from spreading.

If you’re still pondering how I came to find myself in such close proximity with such poor unfortunate souls, DON’T. You’ll understand as my story unravels.

In the words of a dedicated reader’s comment on my last post, “JaneDoe JaneDoe! Do you court drama or drama just finds you?” To which I replied, “beats me, perhaps I murdered a bunch of kids in another life and I’m paying for it in this life” : STAY AS FAR AWAY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN FROM TROUBLE.

The rest of my adventures continue.. don’t go away.

Bloggingly,

J.Doe

I‘ve had this disturbing urge to blog about what’s happened to me in the past 36hours. I promised myself  to go ahead with it while I was being drilled by some PeterPan-looking policemen yesterday. (Oh! no no, I haven’t committed another crime- at least not that I know of.)

Normally, this should’ve been like the 150^th chapter of my blog entries, so I’ll be nice and give you a sneak peak.

Now I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a difference between an asylum house/asylum seeker and a refugee camp/refugee because honestly, they sound the same to me. So I found this somewhere on the net:

The terms refugee and asylum seeker are often used interchangeably because most refugees are at some point asylum seekers. An asylum seeker is someone who makes a claim for asylum in a country other than their own. The rights of asylum seekers are more restricted than the rights of refugees in relation to movement (where they can travel to), employment, health care and social security. People move from asylum seeker status to refugee status once the country they have applied for asylum in accepts their claim.

So why the need for all this pointless jargon?

That’s because I’m writing this post from an asylum house/refugee camp.

Did your jaw just drop? You’re probably wondering HOW?WHY?WHEN?WHERE?!!!!!

You’d think that with all the bullshit drama I went through two years ago, my story would have a happy ending. No,the nightmare’s just begun.

Now I’ll just breeze through the barrage of 21 questions racing through your minds:

Am I sad? No. I’m crushed and destabilized.

Am I lying  in a tent surrounded by cholera-ridden displaced-starving kids, human waste and undetonated bombs? Thank heavens, No. It’s a decent enough facility and I’ve actually got a room to myself in the single women’s ward. And yes, there are displaced kids running lose. (I adore kids really, but this is torture)

So, is it like some kind of prison? how come you’ve got your laptop and internet connection? Yes, it’s like a mini-prison, only you can leave at 6 in the morning and return 11 at night. So the Slovenian makes the two-hour journey everyday and deposits me later at night.

I’m probably the only alien here with my laptop and cell phone so I connect with my mobile. The connection is painfully slow, but I’m managing just fine. Other aliens won’t stop staring at me though. They must think I’m some long-lost heiress to the some long-lost throne. I certainly do not fit the description of a refugee. I came prepared- gadgets, designer gear and all. I have to look fabulous even if I’m going to be deported.

Wow, you must really miss him, right? Who? The Slovenian? You haven’t the slightest clue. He’s JesusChrist the Slovenian. That bloke would give his left ball for me and I in turn would give him both kidneys.

Does your cell room stink? Yes, of intoxicating piss. But it’s not that bad. It’s like a 1.5 star hotel.

Oh, any Nigerians there? Now what do you think huh? There’s four of them. All males. In the teeny-weeny two million Slovenian population? SURE. THERE ARE NIGERIANS ABOUT, SEEKING REFUGE FROM GOD-KNOWS-WHAT!

So, how the fuck the bloody hell on earth in God’s name did you end up in a refugee camp/asylum house or whatever? Long long long story. You’ll read it about it later.

No matter how bright and cherry I’ve painfully managed to paint the picture I’m in right now, the fact still remains- a refugee camp is a refugee camp is a refugee camp. Enough said.

I haven’t the strength or will to write anymore. At least not for the rest of this week.

I am mentally and physically drained.

To those of you who pray, do say a little prayer for me, because that bloke upstairs turned a deaf ear and blind eye eons ago.

Pray that I won’t be dumped on the next available flight out of here. Not to Muritala Mohammed airport (at least that would be a relief!) but back to cold stinking Frederic Chopin( forgive me dear Poles, I feel that way right now). Yes, there’s something in the law that could toss me back to Poland like I’m damaged goods.

I just want my life back.

Bloggingly yours,

J.Doe.

I stole the Cameroonian’s sorry excuse for a Polish-English dictionary the day before my transfer. I mean, I could’ve pinched an apple or two, or a tube of toothpaste from the lesbian, but at that point, the dictionary seemed more like a life-saver than a bucket of nourishing apples. It was tattered beyond recognition, missing a bunch of alphabets, but it would go on to save my neck more often than once.

I got to mingling with the cell mates. It housed two camps at war with each other. In the first corner, a bespectacled hunchback and her aide- a toothless recovering drug addict who bore a striking resemblance to a ventriloquist’s dummy. In the other corner, a balding old vulture of a woman with chronic respiratory disorder.

She had this persistent-annoying-dry-hacking-whooping cough that just made you want to gorge your ears out. It was worse at night. We never could get any sleep because she was coughing up her lungs and farting at the same time.

Her aide, a twenty-something year old thug serving her third year in detention for murder.(I know this because when I asked her what she was in for, she drew an imaginary slit across her neck)

The last one, another toothless alcoholic with a limp.

These women were very ill and very sick in the head.

At first, the bald head and the thug seemed nice. The thug was kind enough to move top bunk and let me bunk beneath her. The bald head specifically warned me in sign language never to venture to the hunchback’s camp. If there was an “or else clause”, I’m really not sure, but she did instill the fear of God in me. I never even as much as glanced at them.

I was promptly offered a cigarette which for some reason, I couldn’t refuse. I don’t know- peer pressure maybe, but all I wanted to do was fit in. Using my dictionary, we had a meaningless conversation about what brought me to Poland, and then to detention, to how hot Africa really is, and to whether my skin was made of leather.

I proudly handed her my court papers so she could see the kind of jobs I was pulling and perhaps earn a little respect off her. Her ugly vultured face registered stupefaction, and so did the others after she’d read my felony out loud to them.

With my dictionary, she made it crystal clear they’d put me away for at least 8 years. “Yeah, whatever. I can do the time on my head” I replied , brushing her off with a cursory wave of my hand.

Next morning I was woken up by a malnourished, anorexic-looking guard. Her head was way too big for her scrawny little neck, making her look like one of the powerpuff girls. She hustled me out of bed to meet with the gynecologist.

God knows where she got the strength to let a scream out of her lifeless body: “JaneDoe! Ginekolog!!!”

I beseeched her in the name of whatever god she worshipped to let me throw decent clothes on but she was having none of it.

I normally slept in a filthy piece of rag that was a night shirt once upon a time and I was mortified to venture out looking like a harried mopstick, not with all the tanned, sweating muscular testosterone lurking outside.

I suddenly remembered all the times I’d sworn to myself “I wouldn’t be caught dead in this or that” -boy did I eat my words.

As usual, I turned on the water works and followed her tail between legs.

On the way out of the last gate, I stole a quick glance at a mirror in the hallway, and I looked far worse than I’d imagined. I was the perfect poster for a UNICEF-save-a-child-campaign.

Once outside, the cheering began. Walking to the clinic meant you had to walk all the way past a caged legion of screaming males and females alike, past a couple of male prisoners sweeping the grounds, past a couple of male prisoners off to or back from dinning, and worse, past a couple of shirtless, sweaty males playing basketball.

So I took a deep breath and basked in the morbid ridicule. It was wilder than a Nirvana concert. The entire one-and-a- half minute walk across that lawn seemed to last an eternity.

A few seconds before arriving at the clinic, right opposite the basket ball court where the males had stopped their game to begin barking and pounding at the steel nets, I saw something which sent my heart straight to my throat. I saw toddlers. No, not a hallucination, I actually saw little kids ranging from about 0 to 3 with their mothers, all caged up in a hen-like looking barn fenced off by steel wire ring nets. These were children born into the system, and to think that the poor innocent infants were held against their own will sent icy cold shivers running down my spine.

So there I was face to face with the allegedly best prison Gynecologist in a country of 32million people, both of us staring at each other speechless. She didn’t speak one word of English, nor did I of Polish. It was a lost cause. How could I possibly explain to this woman what I was suffering. She tried to speak Polish very slowly, hoping I’d perhaps understand her, but I wasn’t blessed with the gift of tongues.

She later gave up and gestured for me to undress so she could perform an ultrasound after which I was sent to the nurses for a series of blood tests.

Later that evening at dinner time, a nurse came in to administer medication to the inmates. I was called upon ,and using her two fingers, she gestured for me to insert a suppository into my ‘I-wasn’t-so-sure-where’ before bedtime.

Now, I’d used and only heard of vaginal suppositories so I simply inserted it into my cunt vagina before going to bed. This medication would continue for three days, but little did I know I was only worsening my condition.

Because of the language barrier, I’d been inserting a rectal suppository into my cunt vagina instead of my asshole anus. Call me stupid, but how on earth was I supposed to know it was an anal insert???!!! If she’d turned around and drawn an imaginary arrow into her asshole rectum, perhaps I’d have understood clearly what she meant. She simply stuck her index finger in the air and it could’ve meant a thousand things, so I simply took it as “stick this in your cunt. vagina”

En route to my new home, I sat pondering which one of the prisoners I wanted to pummel to death first. The transport van was configured in such a way that each inmate sat knee to knee directly opposite the other.

The cancerous girl sat opposite me chain-smoking cigarette after cigarette, puffing smoke directly into my face, rendering the air malodorous and oxygen-deficient.

The girl with the Egyptian plague sat so close to me, I could feel the pus of her open sores dribbling onto my skin every other minute.

The dying old woman who’d been lifted into the van by four of us -wheelchair and all, sat gnawing away unsuccessfully at a slice of bread. She was having a hard time just getting the bread into her mouth as her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and being toothless made it even more difficult.

The one with the obsessive compulsive disorder sat shaking her head, chewing gum, and chatting away to the another girl who in turn was chewing gum and cackling away like she was going on a school trip and everything was just swell.

The worst part was our luggage- No, -TRASH strewn right on top of our feet and laps the entire journey. It was a circus.

Once, we stopped over at a police station in some village so we could use the bathroom. Of course not without being shackled hands and feet first. One after the other, we were bound by cuffs before getting off the van, then thank goodness, a female officer led us to the bathroom, undid the handcuffs, then let us do our business.

So, let me tell you what happened when the dying old lady asked to go.

Because Policemen are not allowed to have any physical contact with the prisoners except of course in an escape attempt, we (the inmates) had to lift her into the van ourselves. But since they couldn’t shackle us and make us lift her out again, she was ordered to do it in her diaper. From what I could make out of the 3-second argument before the door was slammed in our faces, she’d forgotten to wear one that morning, so the evil policeman ordered her to do it on herself.

Not only did she do it on herself, she also ended up doing the number two a few minutes later, the repugnant smell of which overpowered the already fetid oxygen-deficient cocktail of open sores, cigarette smoke and stinking orifices we’d been immersed in.

Mercifully, we arrived at our new home.

Now I thought to myself- “if this was what they termed ‘maximum security’, then they had to be high on something”. This was a practical April fool’s joke. It was like a Co-Ed campus, only there were guards in uniform stationed everywhere.

“I mean, breaking out of here’s got to be a piece of cake” I also thought to myself.

The irony of it all, and I’m not kidding, was that there was a bloody night club directly opposite the huge prison gates. I mean, this prison was situated right at the center of town! How cool was that?

The second I stepped out of the van, the circus started. Catcalls, whistles, deafening screams, -the star had arrived and it was my show. If black girls could blush, I was beetroot flushed red! From the corner of my eye, I spotted a shirtless, sweating, multiple tattooed , muscular, tanned hunk of a male with beach blond hair and piercing blue eyes.

All at once, a gush of adrenalin I didn’t know I had left came rushing all the way to my lower stomach making me gasp for God-given air and creaming my panties in the process. He’d been mowing the lawn when a guard had ordered him to stop and come lift the old woman out of the van. As he walked up to the van where we stood offloading our junk, he held my gaze steady and smiled at me. I was transfixed. I don’t know how long it was, but the girl with the Egyptian plague suddenly yelled ‘hallo’! in my face. By the time I snapped out of it, the van was already driving away.

We were huddled to the entrance by a guard and while waiting for another guard to let us in, the hunk asked “where you from”? I’m not sure what rendered me speechless-whether it was the fact that security was so lax and communication was permitted with the opposite sex, or if it was the fact that he spoke English, or it was just the voice of this hot hunk driving me insanely horny.

The voice of the guard behind me yelling “Nie”!(which means No) made me understand communication was definitely frowned upon.

As we made our way through the gates, I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. There were males everywhere and they were disturbing the peace. I mean, there were females too, but at that point, my vision was partially impaired.

The screams wouldn’t stop and at some point, I was so sure a lock down would have to be imposed.

The place was humungous. Like I said, it resembled a campus. Three very huge buildings, each four storeys high, the first one on the left housed the males. The one to right housed females and the last one I’m not sure, but behind it was a sorry excuse for a church.

There were other single storeyed buildings scattered behind, adjacent and close to, but these were the kitchens, clinics and God knows what.

The cell blocks for males and females were housed in such a way that they could all see and talk to each other through the windows if they yelled loud enough as the distance between them was quite spacious. But since nobody wanted to be caught in the act, the most effective form of communication the authorities didn’t have a say in was sign language. Every passing minute, you could see hands and fingers jutting out of every window wriggling about.

The inmates were also ranked according to sentencing. Detainees were on the ground floor, inmates serving sentences were on the third, and those in for life were on the last floor. A section of the second floor also housed prisoners, along with the shower rooms, doctor’s, shrink’s amongst other rooms.

As usual, we were led to storage to trade our possessions for prison supplies. It was there I had a full-fledged conversation with the plain-clothes officials on duty.

“where you from?”

“Nigeria”

“aaahh! Nigeria very hot?”

“yes very hot”

“you have lion and elephant?”

(sigh)(at this stage, I knew better than to say no as it would take the conversation to a whole new level where neither of us would be able to communicate effectively, I nod my head in accordance)

“you know Olisadebe Sunday?”

“No, I don’t”

“ You don’t know!!!???He Nigeria, he play fussball in Poland”

“No, really I don’t”

“you know Ockocha’?

“Yes”

“How is like in Nigeria’?

Omfg!

I was rescued by a guard who’d come to escort us to our cells.

As I was a detainee, I was stationed on the ground floor.

Before fixing me up in a cell, the guard asked if I smoked. I really did think carefully about this, but went on to foolishly nod yes.

I was not happy. I was placed on the other side of the wall-meaning, I had no access to the males. I couldn’t see them or talk to them or bat my eye lids at them or watch them sweat and play basketball. I could only stare at the stupid guards, watch visitors come and go, or if I was lucky, catch a hunk or two mowing the already mowed lawn.

So I was placed in a smoking room that already housed five inmates. It was quite huge with about four or five empty bunks so deciding which to bunk on took an eternity.

I stood in front of the door for almost half a minute while the inmates stared at me like I was a natural disaster waiting to happen. I finally settled for a top bunk at the far corner of the cell where a grumpy old hunchbacked lady sat gazing at me as I’d clearly come to invade her privacy.

It was while making my bed that another balding grumpy old lady tapped me on the shoulder, and using her index finger, ordered me to follow her to her own corner.

A fight suddenly broke out in the camp of the hunchback and the bald one about where I would stay, my cigarettes being the common factor.

I opted to camp with the balding one since she looked a lot less grumpier.

These women would later make my life unbearably miserable.

In the midst of battling with my numerous mental issues, I’d become stricken with the biblical curse of “the woman with the issue of blood”. In other words, my menstrual period wouldn’t stop. I had my period everyday up till the minute I left detention, and this would later go on for a whole year. Doctors, Gynecologists, Endocrinologists, Shrinks,Faith healers, Witch doctors, would later diagnose this affliction as stress-induced. My monthly period wouldn’t stop because I was stressed out of my damned mind.

I would later beg God to strike me with syphilis, leprosy, blindness, anything to make the bleeding go away. Only he answered my prayers 16 months later.

The first time I noticed the bleeding, I requested an appointment with the prison doctor. The short scarecrow of a man wore a permanent frown on his face and resembled a bespectacled goat. We got the Australian to interpret my sorrows, but he simply brushed me off by prescribing a couple of ibuprofens. Terrific. Pain killers for abnormal vaginal bleeding.

Two days later when I appeared at his chambers again, he grudgingly put my name down on the list of other inmates waiting to see the gynecologist who visited every other week.

Two agonizing weeks later, the gynecologist prescribed two pink pills which the nurses would administer daily at breakfast and dinner.

Three days later, I cried back to the doctor who by this time was exasperated and yelled something in polish which no doubt sounded like “what does this fucking African want again?”! As I made out the words kurwa Afrykanski. (You pick up swear words pretty fast in a foreign country prison.)

This time, he ordered me to pull down my knickers so he could see the bleeding himself. By now, I was already immune to any form of human debasement so I simply did as told and revealed a half-soaked sanitary towel. He still wasn’t convinced. Again, I was escorted back to my cell with two ibuprofens.

I was rapidly running out of sanitary towels but the curly-haired guard, being sympathetic to my plight, made sure I got as many towels as I needed.

It wasn’t long before I cried back to the doctor. It’d been a whole month already and the bleeding still hadn’t ceased.

One morning after breakfast, the lesbian and I were playing cards when a monster cramp racked my insides sending me crashing to the floor, writhing in excruciating pain. My shorts were drenched in blood.

The doctor was off duty that morning, so a nurse forced two sleeping pills down my throat, and the next morning, the Australian was brought in to inform me that I was to be shipped off to a ‘maximum security’ prison which housed according to them, the best prison doctors, and was some 400kilomtres away from the one I was already holed up at. This did not sit well with me. I should never have gone to that doctor. I could’ve just lay in bed and waited for death to come.

She did her best to convince me it wasn’t as bad as it sounded and that I’d be properly taken care of there.

By a stroke of good luck, the curly-haired guard was on duty that morning, and (I honestly hope to God whatever I write here shall not be used against her in a court of law), let me stay in the Australian’s cell for a whole hour, sipping coffee and just having a swell time. That one hour was by far the best I had in my entire five month detention and I will always cherish it.

We talked about everything from the tea in china, to the war in Iraq, to whether or not crocs are a fashion faux pas.

I gathered she’d been in that hell-hole for 13 months along with her Palestinian boyfriend(seriously how do people from all over the world end up in Polish prisons??) who was detained in a prison hospital in Warsaw.

She didn’t tell me her crime and I didn’t ask, but it had to be something serious if investigations were still underway for 13months.

Her poor mother had moved all the way from Australia to take up work in Poland just to be closer to her.

When our one hour was up, she, along with her other inmates, gave me a truck-load of goodies- jogurt, coffee, tea, shaving sticks-(the instrument with which I would later slash my wrists), hand lotion, lip balm, chocolate, soap and three packs of cigarettes. I wasn’t a smoker, but she insisted I guard it with my life and trade with it as it was the only currency that would help me survive where I was going. My joy knew no bounds. I cried and thanked them and cried. Then I cried and thanked the curly-haired guard.

Morning came. At 5.am, the guard handed me a loaf of bread, cheese and a bottle of water. I was marched to storage to collect and sign for my earthly possessions. I felt a bit elated when I grabbed the disc man my roommate had brought to the station. I’d listen to some music and relax at the back seat of the patrol car. Then I remembered the idiot didn’t bring any Cd’s along that day and worse, dear God, worse, I realized I’d be cramped in a van along with 5 terminally ill prisoners.

First off, it was perhaps someone’s great-grand-mother- she was well over 80. A lean and dried up wheelchair-ridden very old woman with shriveled skin. Her head hung lifeless on her side as saliva driveled from her mouth. I still keep asking myself why a woman that old and disabled would be in detention. I mean, if she was serving a life-sentence, I’d understand. But detention??

The next one was unmistakably a cancer sufferer. Her head, brow and lids were completely devoid of hair. She looked pale and wan. This might sound cliched, but she did have a cigarette wedged in between her fingers.

Another one – this one placed herself right next to me, her body was covered in huge sores that bore semblance to some dreaded Egyptian plague.

The other two looked normal, save for one that was suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder,I’m not sure – probably just a tick. Her head had a mind of it’s own- it wouldn’t stop twitching.

These were the lovely ladies I’d spend the next five hours with.

I SHALL NEVER MESS WITH WORDPRESS CODES!

So, if you dear imaginary readers would find it in your schedules to kindly visit again?

Kindly listen to  the long-winding ramblings of a poor unfortunate idiot illegal undocumented alien…

Life in cell 105 was absolutely fantastic! I suffered from dementia, chronic insomnia, melancholic depression and a string of other mental disorders I couldn’t quite put a finger on.

The cell mates too were doing just fine. The Cameroonian was falling apart so fast, we expected her to die on us any minute. I wished I could trade illnesses with her. She kept us awake every night groaning and wincing in agony. Every organ in her body was on fire. Name the disease, she had it. There were times she’d be camped on the toilet sit nursing away her diarrhoea and struggling with coughing fits at the same time. Imagine coughing uncontrollably and shittin’ passing out your bowels simultaneously.

Most of the time she lay in bed stark naked save for a teeshirt, spread-eagled, just to get some breeze in  to ease the burning sensations of a vaginal infection. I was to discover two months later she’d been diagnosed with HIV. I felt so sorry for her. She looked gross, unkempt, lethargic and her body was crawling with sores. The guards hated her and the nurses were tired of her. Prisoners diagnosed with grave illnesses were driven to the prison hospitals twice a week, but her pleas were often rejected by the authorities because they somehow got it into their heads that she was faking the whole thing.

Many a time, she was just yelled at for no apparent reason. We longed for mornings the curly-haired guard would be on duty. It was like being handed a get-out-of-jail-free-card. She made life worth living.

Two weeks into my sentence, I got my first visitor. I was thrilled. Someone from the embassy had finally decided to pay a visit after major damage had been done.

The conversation went thus: (I remember every word like it was yesterday)

Criminal: “Good morning sir”(showing respect according to African tradition by curtseying)

Embassy rep: “yes, you’re JaneDoe. How are you?”

Criminal: (of course prick I am. ) “fine thank you sir”

Embassy rep: “So listen, your mother called the embassy yesterday. She said I should just tell you to tell me the whole truth about what happened because if you lie to us, God will punish you”

knowing my mother would never pass such a message across even if she had a gun to her head, I replied:

Criminal: “Sir, everything is just like I told the police. I didn’t know That Guy was sending the”…(he cuts me off, yelling:

Embassy rep: “Don’t lie! You better not lie! Tell me the truth!

Now I’m weeping helplessly… who is this oh so stupid prick fool ? I mean what was I expecting? I know my people, I know my country.

I should’ve known better than to think an atom of help would come from them.

So I made a mental note to contact amnesty international-at least they’d be nicer.

But with nothing to lose, I subject myself to answering the rest of his idiot questions.

Embassy rep: “So, give me the name and address of this boy and you better not lie!”

I gave him the full names, addresses, phone numbers of That Guy, his brothers, his brother’s barber, his mother and her tailor, two cousins, his neighbour and her grandmother, his friends and friends of his friends… just in case he decided to skip town.

15 minutes later, the interrogation was over. I gathered my mother was due in Warsaw the following day. My poor mother. I had brought the ultimate shame on my family and she would never recover from the heartbreak. In the midst of all my problems, I couldn’t bear to think of the shitstorm my father was cooking up. I pictured him hurling insults and i-told-you-so’s at his poor wife who would just sit there weeping and muttering things to God.

No words of affection or encouragement, no cheering up, nothing. All I got was a ‘take care of yourself’ and he crawled back to the rock from whenst he cameth.

Back in my cell, I sat pondering how I would explain to my mother, what a vibrator, two durex lubricants and a pair of fluffy handcuffs were doing in a shoe-box under my bed.

Hear me out…

It all started when trigger-happy adsense got it into their thick heads that I violated their terms of agreement and stopped ads from running on my page- that was so unnerving. Don’t get it twisted though, the purpose of this blog is not purely financial. This blog has been a therapeutic outlet for me to let out my fears and frustrations, not to mention writing and ruthlessly editing away into the dead of the night trying to publish readable posts. I might as well make a few pennies while I’m at it.

Again, don’t get the wrong impression- whoever said commercial blogging’s easy was dead wrong! To this day, I still haven’t made a penny to my name and probably never will!

(I’m probably beginning to sound like a broken record , but like I mentioned earlier, I couldn’t log in to my admin page for a few weeks…something to do with my IP address. It’s fine now.

In all honesty, I got a rather disturbing email from an anonymous reader a while back, who claimed to be a ‘well-known’ journalist. He literally begged me to take down the posts and shut down my blog as my writing was as he put it“punishing him “ and went on to cite a host of other criticisms and even advised me to hire a ghost writer. Initially, I was undeterred, but later on it started eating away at me- hence, the decision to digress. Typical me- always looking for the easy way out and landing in something I can’t wipe off!

Finally, in light of the latest comment I received from an anonymous reader, I once again apologize for indirectly suggesting “ you shell out a few bucks to read the rest of my adventures on paperback.“ I promise to continue the story of my journey through hell right here. Don’t go away!

I haven’t posted in a while. That’s basically due to a number of reasons:

First, I couldn’t log into my admin page for a few weeks, but that’s sorted now.

Secondly, let’s be honest, my writing was a tad amateur…it was becoming so much of a drag, and I hate to punish my readers.

Next, you all have to admit, my story’s one hell of an interesting one, so let’s just say I got a book in the works, so there’s not much point putting up posts – is there?? Hopefully, you’ll get to read the rest in my best seller. (wink)

Also, I’ve just recently moved to Slovenia to be with the Slovenian and live happily ever after, so moving cross country from Poland has been hectic.

Finally, I’ve decided to blog about other things I love. i.e Poker, Shoes, Michael Jackson, Shopaholism and life as an alien in a planet which isn’t Poland.

Stay tuned…