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WORLD NEWS Tuesday 24 January 2017

In Colombia, gourmet meals worth going to jail for

ALBA TOBELLA the country. At San Diego,
Associated Press which sits just a few blocks
CARTAGENA, Colombia from Cartagena’s five-star
(AP) — Visitors are flock- hotels, celebrity chefs like
ing to the all-women San Henry Sasson and Koldo
Diego prison in this popu- Miranda ran workshops
lar Caribbean tourist town teaching the 170 inmates
— to dine at Cartagena’s how to make bread and
trendiest new restaurant. whip up fancy desserts.
Convicts, some of them About 20 saw it through
found guilty of murder, to the end and now don
have been serving up brightly colored Carib-
gourmet meals since De- bean head wraps to greet
cember in a novel experi- guests.
ment intended to promote Luz Adriana Diaz, coordi-
the inmates’ rehabilitation nator of the restaurant,
and confront the Colombi- said the hardest part was
an public’s neglect of the convincing the women to
country’s exploding prison believe in themselves.
population. “Being in jail you some-
Judging by the strong turn- time get testy or aggressive
out at the Interno restau- and you ask yourself, is it
rant on a recent night it really worth doing some- Inmates work in the dining room of the Interno restaurant at the San Diego prison, in Cartagena,
appears to be working. thing?” said Isabel Bola- Colombia. Convicts have been serving up gourmet meals at the Interno in the all-women prison
Seabass ceviche and a no, a 62-year-old woman since December, in a novel experiment intended to promote the inmates’ rehabilitation and con-
tabbouleh salad made of awaiting trial for allegedly front the Colombian public’s neglect of the country’s exploding prison population.
(AP Photo/Alba Tobella)
Andean quinoa are among belonging to a right-wing
the dishes on offer whose paramilitary group. “We all
recipes were provided by have fragile hearts. Any-
some of Colombia’s top thing can break us.”
chefs. Dinner is served in a The goal of the project is
patio at the minimum-se- to avoid recidivism, which
curity prison where the in- is a major problem in this
mates used to eat tasteless country where jails strug-
meals on disposable foam gling with overcrowding,
trays and which has been drug use and poor sani-
brightened up with a wall- tary conditions are breed-
sized mural and pink tassels ing grounds for criminal-
hanging from metal bars. ity. Colombian authorities
Interno — Spanish for “in- acknowledge that they
mate — is modeled on the have about 160,000 in-
InGalera restaurant at a mates locked up, though
penitentiary in Milan, Italy. the country’s 130-plus pris-
Latin America’s jails are ons were built to house just
some of the most law- 120,000.
less and inhumane in the Karen Paternina, a 27-year-
world. The inmates at San old accused of extortion,
Diego frequently have to said she hopes the skills
sleep on the floor due to she has learned will help
overcrowding. The jail’s her open a pastry shop so
director, Ramiro Cuadro, that when she gets out of
said that without donations jail she can provide for her
from outside groups, im- baby daughter, who visits
portant rehabilitation pro- her at the prison with rela-
grams wouldn’t exist. tives every Sunday.
The restaurant is an initia- “Working with others can
tive by Teatro Interno, a be difficult because we all
Colombian foundation led think differently.
by TV actress Johana Ba- But it’s also pretty cool
hamon that holds theater to learn from them,” she
workshops in prisons across said.q