Over There, in Lurigancho | Translation

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The following English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence. 

[Daniel Alarcón]: You have to understand that Erica wasn’t the type to pay much attention to boys.

She was about 15 years old, the oldest sibling, and looking after her two younger brothers was already more than enough to keep her mind busy. She lived in Lima, where her family had arrived after leaving the Peruvian jungle with next to nothing. We’re talking about the 1990s. After trying their luck in several districts of the Peruvian capital, Erica’s family built a simple house with a metal door on a small plot of land they had bought for just sixty soles — about 25 dollars at the time.

That little house was in Puente Piedra, a district of Lima that barely felt like part of the city at all. In some areas it was completely rural, with bare, yellowed hills, makeshift houses, and unpaved streets. And dry. Everything is dry.

Anyway, Erica was a responsible young woman. A typical older sister. Boys? Not a chance.

[Erica]: Honestly, no — I wasn’t interested, I wasn’t looking at anyone, thinking “I like that guy” or “he’s cute”… No, no. Because I even asked my mom to enroll me in an all-girls school. I used to study at an all-girls school before we moved here to Puente Piedra. I wore a big, long skirt, very, very modest.

[Daniel A.]: Until one day she crossed paths with Henry.

He was from her neighborhood, about six years older than her. She had seen him before — she knew who he was. He came from a family with more money than hers, though the two families had a close relationship. Erica’s father and Henry’s uncle had spent some time in jail together. Henry’s family owned a plot of land in Puente Piedra that a cousin of Erica’s looked after. And Erica would sometimes go along with her cousin, because there was a television set there….

[Erica]: So we were always the kids who went to the neighbor’s house to watch TV because we didn’t have those things. Honestly, I didn’t go down there very often, because I had to do the laundry and the cooking. It was my two little brothers who went down more.  But one day, I don’t know what happened, and I went down. I went down to my cousin’s place. And right then I see Henry arriving.

[Daniel A.]:  She saw him get out of a very nice red car. His father’s car.

[Erica]: I don’t know what came over me at that moment… When I saw him, I said to my cousin: “Wow,” I said, “who is that guy?”

He was the first man who, at that moment, at that age, I was actually attracted to. Like — wow, he’s so handsome.

[Erica]: Like a flash.

So I remember that one day I told my cousin — yes, I like him. But why would someone like him ever notice a poor little girl like me, I told her. We’re from a humble family. So, well, I’ll keep my feet on the ground, I told my cousin.

[Daniel]: This is Henry.

[Henry]: Well, I don’t remember her that much, but she definitely remembered me — because at that point I already had… this business idea, you know?

[Daniel A.]: In other words, his head was full of ideas, the typical ambitions of so many young men in their early twenties, eyes fixed on their goals. Save money. See the world. Live well. If he noticed Erica, she was just a girl he didn’t think much of. And in any case, a few months after that encounter, Erica and her family moved to another district of the sprawling capital, and Henry’s and Erica’s families were no longer neighbors. They lost track of each other.

Something that often happens.

So, years passed — more than a decade — and each of them went on with their own life. Until one day, when Erica was around 25, her father ran into Henry’s mother and brother completely by chance.

[Erica]: And she says: “Hey, how are your daughters? How are they doing? Have they gotten married yet?” So my dad says: “Yes, one of my daughters is already married, but she doesn’t live here — she lives in Argentina.”

[Daniel A.]: But the oldest one — Erica — was still single. They exchanged phone numbers.

[Henry]: And so one day my mother comes home and gives me the number. I kept it for about a month or so. And then one day it occurred to me — let me give her a call. But the three times I called, I never got through.

[Erica]: So when I got out of work, I would always see a number that had called multiple times, but honestly I didn’t pay much attention to it. I’d think, whatever, who knows who that is, and I’d leave work exhausted. Until one day, I was in the car and I answered. Oh, that number again. I thought, okay, fine, let’s see who this is. I answered, and it was him. “Hello, Erica,” he said. “Do you remember me? I’m Henry.” Oh, I said — hi, hello! So, how have you been? I mean, imagine — since I was 13 years old, that’s the last time I saw him, and then nothing.

[Daniel A.]: Henry told her he was living in Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru, in the south of the country — an hour by plane from Lima.

[Erica]: Oh, wow, that’s great, I told him. “And you?” he asked. Oh, I’m just leaving work, super tired. And that’s how we started talking and talking. And he stayed with me practically the entire way from work to home.

[Daniel A.]: Erica worked in a textile factory. Every afternoon, she rode a bus for about 40 minutes through the jam-packed streets of Lima. Meanwhile, they talked.

[Henry]: And a telephone friendship began.

[Erica]: I loved talking to him. And that’s how the days went by. And with each conversation, I started to open up more… I started to feel comfortable. And so it went.

[Henry]: The conversation was so pleasant. It led to sharing her life, my life, and so on. And that started to generate a warmth, you know?

[Erica]: When he stopped calling me, I felt nostalgic — I felt like… like I needed to hear his voice for my day to feel complete.

[Daniel A.]: Erica, without realizing it, was beginning to fall in love with Henry. With a voice on the other end of the phone. With someone she hadn’t seen in over a decade. Even today it sounds surprising to her — almost unbelievable. Henry would talk to her about books he was reading, about past relationships that hadn’t worked out, about his dreams and their families — but he barely mentioned his day-to-day life. In reality, Erica only knew a couple of things about him: that he worked in Arequipa, and that he was so busy he didn’t even have time to come to Lima. She didn’t even really understand what kind of work it was, but she enjoyed talking to him so much that she didn’t give it much thought.

[Erica]: So one day I came out of a meeting with some friends. And I told one of them what was happening to me. I said: I don’t know, I want to understand what I’m really feeling for him. Because when he doesn’t call me, I feel empty, I feel strange. I don’t know — I think I’m falling in love. But how can I fall in love with someone I’ve only talked to on the phone? I need to see him. I need to know what he’s like, what he looks like. So then my friend says: Just go — why don’t you go to Arequipa? You’re crazy, I told her, how am I going to go looking for him? No, you’re out of your mind. Oh, she says, so you’re going to end up an old maid then. Times have changed, she says, we’re in a different century now.

“What if I go?” I thought. What if I go? What would happen if I went? I’m going to go and just rip the Band-Aid off once and for all.

[Daniel A.]: It was a risk, but she let herself be convinced that it was worth taking.

Erica left that same afternoon — twelve hours by bus to Arequipa. And when she arrived, she called Henry from the bus terminal. He didn’t pick up. She called and called and nothing. She had no choice but to go back to Lima, destroyed. Physically and emotionally destroyed.

[Erica]: I even got home furious. I locked myself in my room and — I threw my bags down. I threw my phone, I threw it. I was that angry. I started crying. I cried a lot that day, because I had been alone for a while by then. And it was rough — I mean, I had a terrible time, because I thought: no, he’s hiding something from me. Maybe he has kids, maybe he has a family. And what am I doing here?

[Daniel A.]: The next day, Erica pulled herself together and turned her phone back on.

[Erica]: His call came in…

[Henry]: I decided to call her, for better or worse, and tell her the truth.

[Erica]: So I answered, and I — I asked him: why did you do this to me? I said. And then he took a breath and said: No, Erica, listen…

[Henry]: I want to tell you that I’m closer than you think. In fact, we’re practically neighbors.

[Erica]: “I’m in Lima,” he told me. In Lima? I said. But how — how? If you’re in Lima, then why? Why are you doing all this? I said. And he says: I’m actually close to where you live. What? Close to where I live? I said.

[Henry]: And I ended up telling her the truth. Where I was. Why I was there. Apologizing to her, because unfortunately a lie had grown out of this.

[Daniel A.]: Henry had gotten tangled up in a lie he didn’t know how to get out of. Out of shame. Out of pride. But he didn’t have another partner. He had no wife, no children. He wasn’t living in Arequipa either. He was actually in Lima — he had always been in Lima.

[Erica]: And that’s when he just blurted it out — just like that, in one breath. He said: Yes, Erica, I’m here in Lima. But I’m being deprived of my freedom.

[Daniel A.]: He was living in Lurigancho Prison, the largest prison in Peru.

I’m Daniel Alarcón. This is Radio Ambulante.

We’ll be right back.

[Daniel A.]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante.

[Daniel A.]: So tell me a little about your crime — how you ended up serving time.

[Henry]: Well, I was living in Bolivia… And in Bolivia, I managed to avoid getting arrested three times because of my activities.

[Daniel A.]: We’ll get back to Erica’s story, but first I want to explain why Henry ended up in Peru’s most feared prison.

So, let’s be clear. When Henry refers to his activities, his main activity at the time was transporting drugs from Bolivia to Brazil. He was taking enormous risks. But he got away with it. Three times. And since he didn’t want to risk a fourth…

[Henry]: I came to Peru… They had already told me that gastronomy was going to boom. So… My idea was to come to Peru, study culinary arts — because I liked it, I love cooking — specialize, go back, and open a food business.

[Daniel A.]: He wanted to live clean, stay out of trouble. But one day, outside a restaurant where he was about to interview for a job, he got a call from an old friend.

[Henry]: He asks me to meet him at an amusement park. And I clearly remember him saying: “Come here right away — this is the deal of a lifetime.” That was a turning point in my life, because when I went to that amusement park and talked to my friend, he showed me this enormous machine — 50 tons.

[Daniel A.]: The machine was a small roller coaster. And the plan was to dismantle it, fill it with 500 kilos of cocaine, and export it to Germany. I repeat: 500 kilos. A massive operation. And if everything went according to plan, Henry would walk away with 3 million euros. With that kind of money, Henry figured, he wouldn’t be opening a restaurant in Lima or La Paz… He’d be opening one in Amsterdam or Berlin.

And if you’re wondering why anyone would take such a risk… Well, Henry has asked himself the same question.

[Henry]: I grew up, for example, in a middle-class school. I didn’t need anything. It was about getting to know the adrenaline that this kind of life gives you — that thrill of doing things that are forbidden.  Outsmarting authority, you know. I felt like it… fed something in me. Like it gave my life a little bit of meaning.

[Daniel A.]: In other words, a person can be addicted to many things. To drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling… but also to adrenaline. And that addiction was what ultimately changed Henry’s life forever. There were five people involved in the operation: him, his friend, two Germans… and a police informant.

Henry’s friend was right: it truly was the deal of a lifetime. Except that deal… went very badly. Very badly indeed.

When he was arrested, Henry  denied everything.

[Henry]: And, well, I assumed that by denying my involvement, I would come out okay. But no — over time, I realized that if I had accepted responsibility and acknowledged my mistake, they would have given me a shorter sentence. They gave me 20 years for arrogance, for refusing to admit anything.

[Daniel A.]: Twenty years.

And with that sentence, Henry ended up in Lurigancho.

And if you’re picturing Lurigancho as one of those orderly American movie prisons… Think again. It’s more like a small city of just under three hectares, with its calmer neighborhoods and its dangerous zones. There are restaurants, alcohol, drugs, weekend parties with cumbia bands that come in from outside to liven up visiting days… There are truly frightening people — I’ve seen them — and others who simply want to serve their time without getting into trouble. Soccer tournaments are organized, and in some wings there are even democratic elections. There are landlines and of course cell phones — an indispensable tool for those who keep running their operations from the inside, or for those who simply want to stay connected with the people they miss, the ones waiting for them on the outside. But the most striking thing, the first thing you notice when you visit this prison, is that it suffers from extreme overcrowding. When I first went there in 2006, there were about eleven thousand inmates living in Lurigancho — a facility designed to hold only two thousand five hundred. Every night, hundreds of men slept out in the open, wherever they could find a corner. These unfortunate inmates were called

Henry had never seen anything like it.

[Henry]: I encountered a Lurigancho that was criminal, corrupted, violent.

[Daniel A.]: He hadn’t even been there a week when the prison exploded. A riot.

[Henry]: I see people on the roof firing guns because it was everyone against everyone. And there was the sound of grenades. I remember clearly the guy who had a pistol loaded with what I think were rounds for killing bears — or a shotgun, something like that, that made a deafening noise — and I was under my bed thinking: what have I gotten myself into? I hadn’t even been there a week. I thought: is this how it’s going to be the whole time?

[Henry]: The police had to come in to calm things down and it took a couple of days to fully settle it. That’s why I remember the smell of tear gas for two days.  That’s where I learned that vinegar is good for that — even soaking a cloth in urine and putting it on your head helps. It reduces the effect of the gas. And that’s how I began my time there.

[Daniel A.]: He was certain he had arrived in hell.

The heart of the prison, then and now, is a long open-air walkway that connects several wings. It’s known as the Jirón de la Unión. Lima residents will recognize that name — the real Jirón connects the two main plazas of Lima in the historic city center. The Jirón, Lurigancho version, is a market — a narrow alleyway of commerce and foot traffic. You can buy a pipe or get a haircut. And in the era when Henry began his sentence, it was also a place that inspired fear.

[Henry]: When you walked through the Jirón, you could see the marks left by grenades, the bullet holes in that passageway. It gave it a much more sinister feel. You could tell… It was a war zone.

[Daniel A.]: A real war zone. People were robbed. Assaulted. One inmate once told me that he had gone for a walk outside his wing and was kidnapped. He actually laughed at how absurd it was. Let me explain: some inmates he didn’t know, from a less privileged wing, forced him into their area of the prison, and he had to pay a ransom for the sole privilege of returning to what was, in relative terms, the comfort of his own cell. That was Lurigancho in those days.

So now you understand the kind of place Henry was in. And perhaps with that context, it becomes a little clearer why he hadn’t told Erica any of this. But he knew she deserved an explanation.

[Daniel A.]: At the moment when you realized you had to tell her the truth — what did you feel? 

[Henry]: As they say here, I felt roche — embarrassed to have to tell her I was here, you know? But in the end, I had two options: either stop communicating with her and leave it at that, or simply tell her the truth and at least come across as somewhat decent — be honest with her and say: yes, this is how things are.

[Erica]: When he told me that — from where I was standing, I just… sat down. I felt a deep sadness when I found out he was in that situation.  And instead of blaming him or asking why he hadn’t told me, the only thing I asked was: when can I see you? Can we meet? Because I need to talk about this in person, not over the phone. But I was already in love with him. I had already fallen in love with him. 

[Daniel A.]: In other words, there was no going back.

We’ll be right back.

[Daniel A.]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante.

The first thing Erica felt was relief. Relief that Henry hadn’t lied to her.

Let me clarify.

Yes, he had lied to her about some things…  Living in Arequipa, for example. And yes, he had left out some pretty basic information about his life. But… he didn’t have a wife or family, and most importantly, what he felt for Erica was genuine. It was a love that went both ways.

So they arranged to meet. Erica, unlike many people in her situation, wasn’t afraid to go to Lurigancho. She already knew what that place was like — she had been there before to visit someone she knew. She was prepared to face it, however unpleasant it might be. For her, the most important thing was to meet Henry in person. Finally, after three months of talking on the phone, she would see him for the first time. She was worried about the conditions Henry was living in and didn’t want to show up empty-handed…

[Erica]: I remember that since I was leaving straight from work that Friday, I went to a shopping center. To buy sugar, rice — I mean, I imagined he was really struggling, you know? I bought chicken, rice, brown sugar — two kilos of it. And I arrived carrying all that weight.

[Henry]:  I saw her arriving with bags, right? Bags of… she brought chicken, groceries, things like that.

[Erica]: When I saw him… I honestly felt an enormous joy. Seeing him — he came to take the things from me.

[Henry]: I remembered her as a 14-year-old, and over the phone I was hearing a woman, you know?  But yes, I recognized her when I saw her — she still had her same features.

[Erica]: He was exactly as I had imagined him. 

[Daniel A.]: And as she remembered him, despite all the years. Not very tall. Dark-haired. Brown-skinned. With a big smile.

[Erica]: And the first thing he did was give me a kiss.

[Daniel A.]: Believe it or not, the prison transforms on visiting days. It becomes a more welcoming, gentler place. It’s as if everyone agrees to be on their best behavior — a shared understanding that what matters is that families take away a good impression of that hell, so they don’t worry so much. 

And so, with the prison showing its best face, Erica and Henry talked seriously for the first time. 

[Erica]: I told him to always show himself as he truly is. Never pretend to be someone else for me, because I want to fall more in love with the man I’m getting to know. Show me who you really are, and that’s the man I’m going to love — and I want that love to last.

As I said, when I came into his life, I came with a feeling already there. The feeling already existed — and then it kept growing stronger. It grew even stronger when I saw him.

[Daniel A.]: So Erica and Henry began a relationship — with the truth out in the open this time. They both understood the complexity of the situation, but it didn’t scare them. They enjoyed being together. They cared for each other, and with each visit, the relationship grew stronger. They talked on the phone every day. Several times a day.

But of course there were difficulties, because a love like Erica and Henry’s is not for the faint of heart. Consider… Dropped calls and the frustration of being apart. The constant worry that something might happen inside the prison. I mean, the ever-present threat of violence, obviously — but there are other possibilities too. What if the police come in to search and confiscate your phone? What if they transfer you to another prison, for one reason or another? Or for no reason at all, because those things happen too. And for Erica: What do you tell your friends? Your family? What will they think? The loneliness. Not being a ‘normal’ couple, in the conventional sense. 

And the doubts. Constant doubts. Am I crazy? Is he? Keeping jealousy in check. Me, locked up in here, trusting blindly that this love is real.

Not every couple survives that kind of pressure. And even less so when you keep it to yourself. Erica told almost no one. Only her closest friends. For everyone else, Henry was traveling. Always traveling.

They saw each other twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. From that first visit, Erica had learned that there was no need to bring Henry anything from the outside. The challenge and discomfort of getting through security at the entrance was more trouble than it was worth. They inspected everything. They made you wait. It was humiliating — and besides, everything Henry needed could be found inside. What mattered was seeing each other. 

[Erica]: Even though he’s not with me every day, he’s always tried to give me… He’s given me emotional stability — because I knew that Wednesday was coming, Saturday was coming, and I was going to see him and enjoy being with him. Those days with him made up for all the rest.

[Daniel A.]: On Wednesdays and Saturdays they could spend the whole day together, from morning until five in the afternoon when it was time to leave. Time always flew by. They walked through the wing. They talked. They made plans for the future. And Henry began to realize that he wasn’t just in love — he also deeply admired her. 

[Henry]: Her character — how strong she is, how clear she is about certain things — helped me a great deal. She knows how to manage me. She levels me out. She’s leveled out my life. Give it a certain maturity. 

[Erica]: For me, he’s also like the pillar of my home.

[Daniel A.]: That’s how solid that love felt. But that didn’t mean the situation was easy to live with. 

[Erica]: I mean, for example, I miss going to the movies, going dancing. It’s something I’ve stopped doing. I have done it, yes, but with friends, and it doesn’t have the same feel. The joy of going out with your partner, enjoying yourselves, maybe having a drink, then talking and laughing until it hurts — or traveling, you know? So, one way or another, every now and then, you end up feeling frustrated when you see other people doing all of that.

When we were coming up on a year together, nearly a full year, his cousin — his own cousin — told me I was wasting my time. You’re a pretty girl — why don’t you start fresh? What are you doing here?

The thing is, I’m not someone who lets herself be easily influenced. I like to make my own decisions. I chose this. And I’m going to keep going. Through the lows and through the highs. 

And what I’ve always told him is: if you really love me the way you say you do, and we hold on tight to each other, we’re going to achieve so many things.

[Daniel A.]: Inside the prison, once you’ve served half your sentence, they say you’re on the downhill. The idea is that by then, everything feels more manageable — that you’ve made your peace with this home you would never have chosen but that became yours.

I met Henry around 2006, during my first visit to Lurigancho Prison. I went to present a short story collection, and he was on the uphill, well on the uphill… entering only his third year of those twenty he’d been given.

And it was taking a toll on him. The next time I saw him, a couple of years later, he was a different person. He had reconnected with Erica. He had hope. He seemed more grounded.

[Henry]: The balance I’ve had in my emotional life — I mean, I’ve matured mostly because of her.

[Daniel A.]: He was working and earning money. And if you’re wondering how you earn money inside a prison, well, there are a thousand possibilities in a place like Lurigancho. Henry did a little of everything. He ran a small store, gave legal advice to fellow inmates, and opened a chicken rotisserie. He worked as an optometrist… checking the eyesight of other prisoners. And some people even paid him to write the letters they wanted to send to their girlfriends.

And so when I saw him the second time, he seemed calmer… He had become a leader, known in all the wings of Lurigancho. He made a point of talking to new arrivals and giving them advice.

[Henry]: Because there’s no recipe, you know? Some people arrive with six months, a year, and I see them desperate. I explain things to them, and they say: how long have you been here? I tell them my situation and they’re surprised. They say: man, I’m at the point of wanting to hang myself, and you’ve been here that long and you look so calm.

[Daniel A.]: It’s because Henry had Erica. And with her, a purpose. And not long after, in 2011, he would have something more — a son: Rodrigo.

If a long-distance relationship is complicated, being a father from a distance is even harder. For Henry, it was managed through constant calls, long conversations — several a day — and visits. During one of those calls, in 2016, when Rodrigo was five years old, Henry told him about Puno, the highland region of Peru where he’d grown up before moving to Lima. He promised that one day they would go there together and build snowmen, just like the ones he’d made as a boy during the frost season. Shortly after, Erica called him at the prison…

[Henry]: And she says: “Hey, I don’t know how you’re going to pull this off, but your son is on his way for you to make snowmen with him today.” And it was one of the hottest summers in Lima. Imagine. I had to get my hands on ice. I had to find some friends to help me chip away at it, turn it into shaved ice. And when he arrived, we made a snowman — I taught him how to make a snowman. 

[Daniel A.]: During the visit, there in the courtyard?

[Henry]: In the courtyard 

[Daniel]: Wow.

[Henry]: He was so happy. It was incredibly hot, and it’s one of the memories he always carries with him — he always brings it up. Those are the things that stay with you.

[Daniel A.]: If you stop to think about it, it’s a remarkable image: the residents of a harsh and violent prison, in the height of summer, coming together for a little boy and his hopes of playing in the snow with his dad…

[Erica]: I still have etched in my memory the look on my son’s face when he said: Dad, this is… so beautiful. I’m so happy. Thank you. I never thought I’d be able to — to make a snowman with you.

[Daniel A.]: Let’s hold onto that image, and jump ahead a few years… Several years… All the way to 2020.

By then, Henry was already on the downhill.

When the pandemic hit, Rodrigo was nine years old, and Erica was expecting their second child. The phone calls with Henry that we’ve been hearing up until now come from those first months: March, April, May of 2020, when everything was uncertain. My phone would ring with a number from Peru, and I’d rush to grab my recorder to connect to the call. He would reach out to me, I think, because he wanted someone to know what was happening inside the prison. Because he was afraid.

Lurigancho penitentiary call. To accept, please hold.

[Henry]:  Hello, Dani.

[Daniel A.]: Hey, how are you?

[Henry]: Hello, Daniel, how’s it going? 

[Daniel A.]: Good, can you hear me?

[Henry]: Yes

[Daniel A.]: How are things going? What’s the situation? 

[Henry]: Well, what can I say — it’s like a wave passed through, a tsunami or something, and now we’re dealing with the aftermath. I can tell you that in the wing next door, wing nine, six friends have already confirmed they’re gone. Here in seven, where I am, not yet… There are two friends they took away, but we still don’t know how their treatment is going, how they’ve responded. 

I went to wing three to see a friend, and the doctor there — who is himself an inmate — confirmed again that 60 people had already died in wing three. So there must be around 150 people who have died here in Lurigancho alone.

[Daniel A.]: Rumors. Unconfirmed numbers. No one knew whether those who fell ill were being transferred to a hospital or had died. For months, there were no COVID tests and almost no masks — until the inmates started making their own out of fabric.

This call is from May 2020.

[Daniel]: Do you feel like the worst has already passed, or not yet?

[Henry]: Well, I don’t know — I’m waiting to see if the inmates who were evacuated will come back. 

[Daniel A.]: To fight the pandemic and stop the spread, the authorities did what was at once the most logical and the cruelest thing: they canceled visits. 

[Henry]:  And that’s something you miss, because it keeps you connected. It keeps you, like, emotionally recharged. And without that, the absence is felt. I mean, yes — it’s a void that nothing else can fill. Not being able to see your family is really hard.

[Daniel A.]: Hard for Erica too. I spoke with her during that time — during the pandemic, in 2020.

[Erica]: I need to feel his embrace. I need to feel his warmth. I need to feel protected. Right now, not seeing him makes me feel like I’m alone.

[Daniel A.]: Alone, and about to give birth. It would be her second child with Henry. His name would be Gael.

Have you managed to talk to your wife? 

[Henry]: They’re doing her final checkup today. A few minutes ago I called her. They’re starting the last blood tests and everything. The surgical prep.

[Daniel A.]: But how exciting — what do you feel?

[Henry]: Yes, yes — last night I couldn’t sleep because I’m so focused on this. I call her every half hour from here. Well, here the calls — we can make them from six until nine at night. So I prefer to call during the day while they’re handling all of that. And now, today — May 18th — comes the news about my second son: Gael. 

[Daniel A.]: When was the last time you saw your wife? 

[Henry]: Well, I saw her. The second week… before the 14th of February, I saw my wife. March, April, May — three months. Almost. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them. 

[Daniel A.]: That’s the longest you’ve gone without seeing them.

[Henry]: Oh, you can’t imagine. It’s so long — tremendously long. But it’s helped me try to make the most of the communication I do have, to make it more… more loaded with affection — to try to be like a lifeline for all that tension. Because I tell them: now that you’re in lockdown, you have a small taste of what we feel here. Because you’re locked up. Your movement is limited.

[Daniel A.]: And in those days, amid all the terrifying rumors, there was one that gave him hope. Henry had heard that in other countries, some prisoners were being released to reduce prison overcrowding. He allowed himself to think that maybe he would be released too. He only had four years and seven months left of his sentence. Well — it would have been three, but he was given an extra year for reasons that are fairly complicated to explain.

[Henry]: Those of us in my situation imagined: I’ve been behaving well, I’m calm. Look — maybe this is the opportunity for them to say, okay, let’s thin this place out a little… Those who have served three-quarters or four-fifths — let them go.

[Daniel A.]: He was deeply moved by the possibility of being released — especially so he could meet Gael, who was indeed born that May day of 2020 when we spoke.

But they didn’t release him. In eleven years of their relationship, Erica had never once missed a visit to Lurigancho. Now she had no choice but to wait. She dreamed of the final day of his sentence — the day he would finally come to live in the house she had built for them.

[Henry]: I have a wish: on the day I get out, I’d like them to leave the car outside and let me come out with the key myself. I mean, no one is waiting for me. Simply having the key, picking it up from a parking spot out front, and driving myself home. 

[Daniel A.]: We’ll be right back. 

[Daniel A.]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante. 

Years earlier, a friend of Henry’s had given him a piece of advice. Whatever happens, he said, never stop looking at the door. Always remember that one day you’ll walk out through the same door you walked in. 

And so it was. On January 6, 2025, after twenty-one years and two months behind bars, Henry crossed through the gates of Lurigancho Prison. He had imagined this moment for more than two decades, thinking about what it would feel like to leave, believing he more or less knew what awaited him. But in reality, it all happened very fast. Too fast. So fast that his parents and siblings didn’t even manage to record the moment he walked out. So fast that Erica didn’t even make it in time to see him cross the threshold. Still, he felt relief — it’s done. It’s over. I’m outside, he thought. I survived.

It was four in the afternoon. After the embraces and a few tears, he left with them into a city he barely recognized.

[Henry]: It’s twenty-one years. I mean, imagine — that’s a lot. I’m turning 50 this year, so it’s nearly half my life that I’ve been absent from the Lima I’m discovering today. 

[Daniel A.]: In 2003, when his sentence began, Lima was a city of eight million people, and the area surrounding the prison was nearly rural. By 2025, the Peruvian capital had a population of over ten million and ranked among the five largest cities in South America. When he got out, what he saw were streets packed with houses and construction, traffic, cars, buses, motorcycles, and people — so many people, so much commerce. For Henry, it was overwhelming. 

They all went to the home of some close friends — people who are almost like family — who lived just a few blocks away. Erica arrived there a couple of hours later. 

Then Henry asked to be taken to the beach — not to swim, even though it was summer, but simply to look at the sea. He stood there for a while, watching the waves. He hadn’t been near the ocean in more than two decades. Its vastness. Perhaps he needed a bit of perspective before beginning his new life. 

It’s important to understand what he was going through. He had entered Lurigancho as a young man of 28. Single and facing an enormously long sentence in the country’s most dangerous and overcrowded prison. He came out two decades later as a middle-aged man with a partner, children, and a home. 

And that’s where fantasy collides with reality.

For years, Henry had felt something resembling nostalgia for a life he had never actually lived. That life as a couple, as a family. Henry had dreamed of leaving Lurigancho, of course — but perhaps he had never stopped to think about how the misery, the violence, and the dysfunction of that place had shaped him. Not only him, but also his relationship with Erica — the relationship that was at the center of the life he had imagined, the life that was waiting for him on the outside.

The dream of being together was what had sustained them both for years. Erica never stopped thinking about the day Henry would finally come to live with them…

[Erica]: I wanted to know what it felt like to share everyday life with someone, to be there day after day, because I imagined having a person there who’s watching out for you, and both of you watching out for each other. To share everything.

[Daniel A.]: But what happened when they finally got exactly what they had hoped for?

Well, those first weeks were not easy…

[Erica]: When he came to the house, I started to see a side of him I had never seen there, you know? And that… It caught me off guard. It was hard — hard for me to understand. 

[Henry]: I had spent 14 years there without… I think I’d had maybe three or four arguments in 14 years. In the first 15 days living together, we had 10. And people inside used to tell me: cohabitation is different. Because when you’re together during visits, you use the time to show your best side. But in everyday life, you get the virtues and the flaws — 24/7. The whole package. 

[Daniel A.]: Together in the same house, with the two boys, the great challenge was no longer the distance — it was the everyday routine. Waking up early, getting the kids ready for school. Taking them to their activities. Obligations. Meetings. Expenses. All the mundane details that, taken together, make up a life. Shortly after arriving, Henry set about looking for work — which is no simple task when you’ve just come out of two decades in prison. He had to learn how to navigate a city that had changed enormously.

But perhaps the greatest challenge was the relationship between Henry and Rodrigo, who was 13 years old when Henry got out.

Henry showed me a video filmed on the day of his release. He had wanted to surprise his son, and to do it, he had arranged things with the coach of the soccer team where Rodrigo played. That afternoon, the coach had the boys do an exercise they had never done before: taking penalty kicks blindfolded.

[Henry]: And the kids said: but coach, how are we supposed to… No, he said, this is a new technique from Europe — something my wife had come up with. And in the end they started kicking.

[Daniel A.]: Henry was there, hidden on the side of the field, and when it was his son’s turn, Henry quickly ran to the goal. When they took off Rodrigo’s blindfold, his father was standing there. Henry was standing there, ball in hand, waiting for him.

[Henry]: And he looks at me, and I wave at him, but he doesn’t recognize me at first. Then he focuses better. He recognizes me and says: Dad, that’s my dad. And then he just broke down. 

[Daniel A.]: It’s a deeply moving moment, of course — that long embrace… But a reunion like this is not the end of the story. On the contrary. For a father and a son who have never lived in the same house, that embrace is just the beginning of a long road.

[Henry]: Being at home, seeing the situations, the growth, the adolescence of my son — I’ve been told about it, but living it is different. It’s completely different. Because it has its stages, its peaks, where he’s surprised me.

[Erica]: It was a huge change — a whole new world for my son too. Because I think my son had gotten it into his head that he was the man of the house. So it was all very jarring for him.

[Daniel A.]: Henry told me he feels like he owes his older son meetings, birthdays, Christmases. He owes him, above all, time.

[Henry]: Now he sees the bond I have with the younger one, and I imagine he thinks: you didn’t do that with me, that didn’t happen with me. So there’s this weight building up — like an atmosphere that comes out as resentment when he doesn’t want to listen, when he doesn’t want to follow directions. I also understand it’s part of being a teenager.

[Daniel A.]: Henry had only been free for six weeks and things weren’t going so well. From inside the prison, with the work he did there, he had been able to contribute somewhat — to help out. Erica covered the day-to-day expenses, and Henry contributed to the purchase of the family land. But outside, suddenly, he couldn’t manage it. He wasn’t making it work. Getting a job with a criminal record — and the stigma that comes with it — was complicated. He tried to become a taxi driver, but no one would hire him. Inside the prison, he was someone. Everyone came to him for help, advice, job offers. He had friends. Outside, he was nobody. No one knew him. He even lost contact with some of the friends he had made inside — people he had considered his brothers.

It wasn’t just that he had to learn to get around the city. He also had to learn other everyday things. For example, not being afraid of the police. Sometimes he’d be walking down the street talking on the phone, spot a police officer, and quickly put his phone away — a reflex.

Inside, he had things under control. Outside, he didn’t. And that wore down his patience and soured his mood. Perhaps nowhere was this more evident than in his relationship with Erica. 

So, at some point, have you felt like these challenges — which are just normal parts of domestic life — have been like a disappointment? Like this wasn’t what you expected… 

[Henry]: Well, at first, yes. Because at some point I started telling my wife: I’ve been cheated. Because she had less patience than I’d imagined. But she said the same thing to me: the same thing happens to me. I thought you were more tolerant in certain ways.  So in the end, it was a matter of giving in and communicating.

[Erica]: God — we reached a moment because the relationship was starting to crack. And I found myself between a rock and a hard place. And one February 14th we decided to go out for a walk and talk, right? To have a conversation, because what I had expected wasn’t happening — it wasn’t flowing.

[Daniel A.]: It was Valentine’s Day. The first time they were celebrating that date in freedom. They went to the center of Lima. Just steps away from the real Jirón de la Unión.

[Henry]: We wanted to see the center of Lima, and we sat down in the Plaza de Armas, I remember. It was almost midnight. We looked at each other face to face, we held hands — because we were both a little upset — and we decided… well, it was mostly my decision: to put all the cards on the table. 

[Erica]: We decided to talk like the adults we are.

[Henry]: To say that things weren’t working out the way we’d thought, the way we’d planned — and that I was willing to make amends. To acknowledge that I’d started off wrong in certain ways at home, and that I was willing to rethink things, start fresh, listen, accept suggestions, and communicate.

[Erica]: I know we have to work on this, we have to change this, right? I mean, for our own sake, for the sake of the relationship, I told him — because I love you and I know you love me too. So let’s try to fix this situation, because our children need it.

I asked him to please be more… I know all of this is new for you. I understand that, I told him.

[Daniel A.]: And right then, the lights went out. 

[Henry]:  In the middle of downtown Lima, it went dark, dark, dark. Completely dark. She held onto me and we kept talking.

[Erica]: Thank God that conversation happened on February 14th, and it worked. And we’ve been piecing it together — putting together the puzzle, so we can keep going, keep nurturing our love, keep building our… There are still things that are hard. Sometimes I don’t agree, you know? And neither does he. But we work through it. We talk it out and reach an agreement.

[Daniel A.]: A couple, fighting to save their relationship, walking hand in hand through the city, and suddenly plunged into darkness. If this were a novel — and not real life — you’d say the writer had laid on the metaphor a little thick.

When I spoke with Erica, she told me something extraordinary — something I hadn’t expected. In prison, she said, as hard as it is to believe, we had more freedom. Because so often they were alone together, they had time to talk — just the two of them — about their problems, their worries, their dreams.

[Erica]: Because here we no longer had space for just the two of us. There were the kids — I mean, we didn’t have that space the way we used to, to talk the way we did back there. 

[Daniel A.]: Back there, in the most dangerous and overcrowded prison in Peru. Back there, where we were happy. Back there, in Lurigancho. 

Outside the prison, now that they finally had the chance to build together the life they had imagined for so long, it was hard for them to find those spaces. It was hard — but that night, in the dark in the center of Lima, they decided to keep trying.

Because freedom, I suppose, is also something that has to be built.

So, let’s imagine this is a message that Erica is going to hear later — something that’s hard to say to her about this process, something you’d want her to understand. What could you tell her? 

[Henry]: Well, I’m grateful, because — I mean, I consider that it’s not easy at all to stand by someone in a situation like this. When I think about my situation and imagine doing it as a woman… Wow, I think, that’s hard. But not only that — not just standing by someone in a difficult moment, but actually building a life project together. Taking a risk. Putting things on the line — professionally, on a family level — and yet, despite all of that, she’s always been there. She’s been strong. She’s passed her strength on to me. I’m grateful. And above all, what I have to do is return to her — in equal measure — that dedication and that love. 

[Daniel A.]: That love that Erica gave him for years.

[Henry]: It was her turn then. Now it’s mine. That’s what I have to tell her.

Mamita

We love you so much

We’re waiting for you

Don’t be long, my love

This story was reported and written by me, and co-produced with Sara Selva Ortiz. Sara is a producer at Radio Ambulante and lives in Madrid. Editing by Camila Segura and Luis Fernando Vargas. Fact-checking by Bruno Scelza. Sound design by Andrés Azpiri with original music by Rémy Lozano, Ana Tuirán and Andrés. Fact-checking by Bruno Scelza. 

The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Adriana Bernal, Aneris Casassus, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Camilo Jiménez Santofimio, Germán Montoya, Samantha Proaño, Natalia Ramírez, Juan Pablo Santos, David Trujillo, Elsa Liliana Ulloa, Franklin Villavicencio y Mariana Zúñiga. 

Carolina Guerrero is the CEO. 

Radio Ambulante is a podcast from Radio Ambulante Estudios, produced and mixed in Hindenburg PRO. 

If you enjoyed this episode and want us to keep making independent journalism about Latin America, support us through Deambulantes, our membership program. Visit radioambulante.org/donate and help us keep telling the stories of the region.

Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thanks for listening.