Trade in Truths

My morning began pouring over stats at the anti-narcotics unit with the help of Mayor Ramirez and the intelligence squad. Unavoidably, these weeks reporting on sex trafficking led to friction with other types of trafficking. I am now probing the subject of mulas, women who use their bodies to transport cocaine or heroine in and out of Ecuador.

After lunch, I visited FLACSO, the main social sciences university in Quito, to interview a researcher who worked years on the subject for her thesis. The studies are mostly qualitative and conclude that the women traffic drugs out of love.  By 4 p.m. I was armed with questions and hailing a cab towards the women’s jail, where 85 percent of the inmates are there for drugs.

At the jail, my questions quickly hit the limits of the director’s knowledge. His attitude hardened in the absence of answers. We exchanged  twenty minutes of verbal sparring and stare downs. He questioned my right to the information. I questioned his right to withhold it.  The interview was off to a bad start. While the anti-narcotrafficking unit gave me carte blanche, the women’s jail met me with resentment and red tape.   

I shut my notebook shut and apologized for wasting both our times.

“I can help you with general questions,” he relented.
The frontal fact-based approach had clearly backfired so I switched tactics. I spent the next hour spiraling in from the least relevant to the most sensitive information. Slowly but surely he opened up as I became the sympathetic cast of one to all of his jail director achievements and frustrations.

By 5:30 p.m. he had forgiven my direct ways and invited me back on Saturday to take photographs.