It helped me a lot to free myself, to have the inner peace that I need it

Chayito, as she is called, wrote her book in 2019. “I wrote it on the floor,” she says. She hugs her bag, she has always carried one everywhere she says “when I was a child, I even felt that it was a friend”.

Chayito was locked up for nine years in the Women’s Prison and later moved to the Izalco Farm, during her “phase of trust”. There she wrote “My Sleeping Bea”, her story and the story of her daughter.

“When ConTextos arrived, at first I said ‘no, what for?’ - she saysI’m sure those folks just want to know about everyone’s private life. I was so skeptical that the first day of school I asked them if they were a system or what? ”.

But Chayito, who is one of those “who are not allowed”, began to loosen up when the sessions of “I am an Author” began.

“You learn to value yourself, to express what you are experiencing. It helped me a lot to free myself, to have the inner peace that I needed because I felt bitter. And there I began to relate my book”.

Chayito is a single mother and began to try to make ends meet in an “ inadequate way”, she says. She needed to support her children, so that they would have what she did not have. She did it until one day they came to arrest her at her house.

When she was in Jail, Bea, her daughter, went to see her. Chayito told her that they had taken her to a police examination and she had been identified.

“She hugged me, bit my ear, kissed me and said ‘I love you mommy’, ‘I love you too’ I told her, but I didn’t think that was a goodbye”.

Her other children were the ones who later broke the news: her Bea had committed suicide. She was 14 years and 8 months old. Her children asked her to have strength. A lot of strength.

Alex wrote his book “Hero” in June 2017. He did it at the Centro Penal de Apanteos during nights, in his bed, after receiving the “I am an Author” sessions. “Although there was total overcrowding, night time provided a very solitary space - he tells - I had my 80-centimeter space and I stole a little bit of light with a mirror. In that little bit of light that fell on my mat, that’s where I wrote”.