This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
Caller: But, outside of that, you know, the pandemic, the COVID, we were isolated. You know, no visits, limited access to the other inmate population. A lot of us were going stir crazy, you know.
I did see the, our, the prison that I’m at here, it seems like they were behind in prevention. So, once one person got it, it just took off like a wildfire. I think about 90 percent of the building that I’m in tested positive for COVID, including myself. And like I said, we didn’t get our vaccines until, like, six months after.
And just recently they’ve opened up the program again where people are going to work and vocations. It’s still limited, you know. We usually go to vocation five days a week and now we’re only going two days a week. So, it’s been bad. What else do you guys want to know about and I’ll tell you about it?
UCI: Well, first, thank you so much for sharing all of that. I really appreciate it, it means a lot to us.
Caller: Is there anything in particular you guys are looking for?
UCI: Anything, anything about your experience. Like, how did you cope with all of this?
Caller: It was rough, you know. You know what I did do? I signed up for a pen pal service and that was kind of cool. I guess, you know, because everyone was sitting at home doing the same thing we’re doing, I signed up for a pen pal service.
And that was cool. I was able to, you know, get some mail and meet some people. I met a couple of people in the UK, I met a couple of people across the United States, a couple of people right here in California. So, I was able to, you know, stay occupied. I work out every day, so I was able to occupy some of my day working out.
I wrote letters. I do, do correspondence college classes. I’m actually a student at [redacted] college as well as [redacted]. So, I’m working towards my AA right now.
So, I was able to, during the COVID, because we didn’t have anything to do, I was taking, you know, five to six classes a semester and really, like, you know, knocking it out. So, I was working on a lot of college. I called my family.
And then, outside of that, you know, it was just, you know, staying busy. I really consumed my days because, you know, like I said, we have very limited access to yard. We weren’t going out, we weren’t going to school, we weren’t going to vocs, we weren’t going to any of our self-help. We were literally trapped in the building for a year. That’s, that’s what we did.
