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.

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