“Back to normal operation”, I hear the officer saying out loud to everyone. It’s 6:45am, and I am getting out of bed, preparing my dirty clothes in case they take our laundry carts. I grab me a milk carton from my ice bucket, my raisin bran, and a banana I have been saving from this week and I have myself a nice little breakfast.
After getting ready, I step out into the main dayroom of our unit, and someone stops me to ask me if I could translate for him over with the case manager. We head into Mr. Kost’s office, as he is being presented his program review.
“Thank you for your help Valdes”, the CM tells me.
“Anytime Sir, I do want to mention that Mr. Ballester-Ramos will be completing what you needed for him to stay here in this unit, and as soon as he does he will bring you the paperwork. I wanted to let you know in case anything comes up for him, you know he is getting that done today.”, I inform him.
“Oh, great, thank you again, have a good day”, he responds.
“You too”, I tell him as I step out of his office and head down the stairs and over to Mr. Rivero’s room.
I sit with Mr. Rivero a few minutes to go over some papers he wanted me to read, and asked if I would help him filling out some documents. It would be no issue to me, I just need him to provide me some information so I could put it all together, translate it, and type it up for him. I take the documents with me to my room to note each detail that I need, and return it to him so he could gather all the information.
It’s almost 10:30, I need to get out of my shorts, and into my class A uniform and get ready for lunch. I head back over to Mr. Rivero’s room and see into his room that he is sitting in his chair, writing the information on a sheet of paper.
“Alistate, ya llamaron recreacion, y pronto llamaran el almuerzo”, I tell him.
“Oh pero que hora es? Casi las once, Dios mio, okay, me voy vestir”, he responds.
“Voy sacar el carro, te espero aqui afuera”, I tell him as I pull his wheelchair out of the room, and walk it over to the dayroom to wait for him.
Today is chicken day; they called chow, and we are on our way out. Of course we have not seen anyone from other units in the last eight days so on our way to the dining room it was non-stop greeting others. Everyone so happy to see us, it took us much longer to get to the chow-hall, but that’s okay. Maybe if we would have gotten there sooner, we would not have gotten a good chicken piece. (That’s the way I look at it)
In the dining room, I grab one tray and hand it to Mr. Rivero, then I hand him the second tray and wheel him over to a table. I fold the wheelchair, and sit down to eat. He tells me he does not want his tray, says I could have it, and walks away to talk to his dominoes buddies. I pulled his tray over next to my tray, and waited until he came back, I don’t think he knew what he was saying. Once he came back, I asked him about the tray; he looks down at it and just then realized it was chicken. He had thought it was something else as he thought it was Monday. After that he still mentioned he didn’t want it, and said I could eat it, but to give him the pack of cookies they gave each of us.
Several guys were asking me if I would be in the chapel after lunch so they could go watch movies. As soon as I returned to the unit, and dropped of Mr. Rivero, I was on my way back to the chapel.
“Hey Chaplain, how have you been, do you mind opening the main door for a few guys coming in for movies?”, I say to the chaplain.
“Good to see you, it feels like I haven’t seen you in forever; yes of course, please give me a second”, he responds and then raises from his chair to unlock the door for the guys. As they enter the chapel and head to the rear of the chapel, I prepare the DVD’s they are asking to watch. Being I have been away from the chapel for so long, I figured it would be quite messy. I check the restroom, and it was filthy, the floors were a mess and the sign-in sheets that were used were disorganized. “Time to put this place back in order”, I thought to myself as I grab my bucket of cleaning supplies and head to the restroom, along with the broom, and some large trash bags.
It took me a good forty-five minutes to detail the restroom, add a new toilet paper roll, and refill the soap dispenser. I sit down at my desk to organize the sign-in sheets and prepare the ones for this evening. Luckily by 2pm, the guys watching movies head back to their units, and the chaplain allowed me to return to mine. As soon as I get back to my unit, I see Mr. Tier in the Glasshouse passing out our laundry bags, so I spend a few minutes folding and putting away my clothes, and organizing my room. My roommate, Mr. Aquino, pulls out some cookies to share with me as he drinks his coffee, and I prepare myself a cafecito as well. Now we wait for count.
As count clears, I am putting my sneakers on and getting ready to head to the chapel. Tonight is the second night of Chanukah, and the first Chanukah service that I get to help prepare for the Jewish community. As soon as they call the move I am on my way out and walking quickly over to the chapel. I see the chaplain’s door open; I say excuse me, step in, follow it with a “hello, I’m back”, and continue into the chapel.
The sign-in sheets are ready to go, I have the lighter in hand for the candles, as the guys start coming in. In the small chapel we have the guys from the Nation of Islam group, who will be having their study session. I prepared the white-board for them, with the marker, and something to wipe the board with, just in case.
As soon as the service was over, the chaplain was in a hurry to get over to the satellite camp next door to handle the service for the guys over there so I ran back and forth turning off lights, and putting things away so we could get out quickly, and I head back to my unit, and straight to my room. I see Mr. Campos; I wave at him and continue on to grab my stuff to take a shower and go to my favorite one on the second tier of the Glasshouse.
Back in my room, I brush my hair, put some deodorant on, and head over to the phones; time to call mom and see how her day was with Adi and my niece then wait thirty minutes before calling my sister. I was able to finish the full fifteen minute call right before the 9:30pm mark where the phones shut off, and I head into the Glasshouse for the end of the day. I see the guys are watching “50 First Dates” on the television, so I rush to my room and grab my tablet with headphones to watch what is left of the movie.
It’s 10pm, and now it is time for some “Gutfeld” on the Fox News Channel. Tomorrow, is another day with much to do, and possibly new adventures.
Father God, I come to you in prayer this evening thanking you for all that you do for me and my family. Please dear Lord continue to bless us in the best of ways for our future. I ask in your name Jesus, that you continue guiding me on this path to continue making the right choices in life, that will allow me to live a positive lifestyle going forward. In your name Lord Jesus I pray, Amen.
Eduardo L Valdes
02499-506
December 26, 2024
22:16
