ASUNCION, SEPT 13 – A female prisoner, Adriana Torres is expected to be released soon from the largest women’s prison in the South American country, Paraguay.
But he says he is in no rush to get out of jail.
“I don’t plan to escape either,” explained the mother of five jokingly as she bent down to finish her comedy performance in the prison yard.
Torres, 33, is one of a dozen inmates at the Buen Pastor Women’s Detention Center in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion who have undergone two months of training in a workshop run by a non-governmental organization, Corazon Libre (Free Heart).
The organization provides comedy training to help inmates prepare for life on the outside again.
Like most of the inmates there, Torres’s story is also a grim tale of drug cases and the urge to live. He, who used to work at a gas station, was caught stealing because of his addiction and sentenced to six months in prison, leaving his father to look after his children aged between one and 15.
“When my father found out I was in prison, he came to see me and said: ‘I’d rather see you here (prison) than out there,'” he told AFP as he left the stage to loud cheers from his fellow inmates.
He said he started taking drugs five years ago, lived on the streets for two years and was ‘absolutely at the lowest point’ in his life before he was sent to prison.
Carolina Romero, comedian and comedy teacher who runs comedy workshops encouraged Torres to open up about their past experiences, even if they were painful, to hone their comedic potential.
“What fuels the success of comedy is tragedy, but it requires a certain skill and effort to be able to accept reality and be able to laugh at it,” said Romero to AFP.
In the bleak and increasingly overcrowded environment of the prison, the comedy show really serves the population of 550 well even though the detention center actually has a capacity for 200 inmates,
Several prisoners, who sat on red plastic chairs several rows around the stage, laughed at the performance.
Brisa Leguizamon Ferreira, a 25-year-old Argentinian, jokes about growing up in a very large and close-knit family.
After relatives came to visit, “my house looked like it had been raided by the police,” he joked.
“That’s family. We always fight too, but when there’s a birthday, we’re all there. If anyone is sick, we all visit. If something happens, we’ll all show up, but now minus one! Thank you!,” he ended the performance with a shout of joy.
Leguizamon and her husband were arrested in Asuncion in 2023 on charges of drug trafficking across the border in the city of Rosario, Argentina. He refused to discuss his case, preferring instead to focus on his five minutes of stage fame.
Among the atmosphere during the comedy show. – AFP
“At first I was nervous, but they (Romero and his team) helped me a lot,” he said AFP. “I believe that this can be a good (comedy) tool for the outside world, now we have to see if we succeed.”
Romero is confident that if they can produce punchline with the right combination of their personal stories and interesting backgrounds, they can succeed in a comedy career.
“Although the community may not hire you with a criminal background like this in other professions, but in comedy they most likely want to hire you,” he said.
Prisoner overcrowding is a chronic problem in Paraguay’s 18 prison centers, with a capacity to house 11,000 people but overflowing with more than 18,000 inmates.
The director of the Buen Pastor detention center, Yenny Delgado told AFP that the comedy workshop aims to help make life more pleasant for inmates who are interested in participating because of good behavior. For those chosen, “jokes are really something that can be a relief,” said Romero. – AFP
