No money, no titles, no me?

How do you function in a place where money doesn't count, education is obsolete, titles, resumes, credits or previous experience is worthless. Who are you in a place like that? I was starting to realize this was the real world. If a nuclear disaster strikes us, this is what the world will be like. No money, no CEO's, VP's, movie stars...no nothing. Just us humans trying to survive each other and, If we're lucky, trying to help each other survive. I look like any old Indian girl from Kashmir, so I assumed that role. It was better for me to have people think I was local and not western. Western people all have money. Even if we're broke, according to their Eastern perception, we are the lucky bitches here on earth. Bhavna finally explained to me how I could get money deposited at the "jail bank" by an outside person. I asked Mr. Paredes, the Mexican Consul, to deposit all of $50 dollars, I thought three days fifty bucks, that's about enough. Little did I know.
So on I went the next day to buy stuff to the "Jailer Joe's" - I bought some sort of fancy fried tostito things, colored pencils, a few white pages, Indian bottled water.......(really?) and shampoo. By this time my hair was a hot mess. I had been un-showered for about 5 days now, the two days in the police station and three days here. I needed a shower urgently. The good thing is we had no mirrors in jail. Or at least, I hadn't see one yet. So after my deadly shopping spree I returned happy and exhausted to "Chez Vega-Hui-Wei" AKA cell number 8. I got home to a nice surprise, Fatima, the veteran African woman that sold the chai in our ward had brought me gifts! She gave me a pair of pants with a beautiful african animal print on them, and a pillow she had made herself with cotton and a t-shirt. My gifts were waiting for me on my dirty old wool blanket sleeping mat. My heart swell up, my eyes well up and I went to look for her at the "Jailbucks". "Fatima!" I yelled, thank you so much! I gave her a huge hug. She was happy to see me happy. She invited me into the lunch area - She sat there with her two friends from England and Germany. They were all there on similar charges. Drug possession for England and drug trafficking for Germany. England was nice, she was tall and blue eyed. And of course as soon as they could they both asked me, why are you here? What did you do? I was surprised to figure out I had no actual idea what my charges were. So I lied. Well, sort of I just said. It's complicated. Fatima quickly said, it's stealing right? My blood pressure dropped. I felt faint. I didn't even know what I was accused of, it could be anything. I left the "Jailbucks" and head over to Angeli's office.
Angeli was our warden. She took care of all the newcomers into ward 8. Ward 8 was were you spent your days until you were formally convicted or let go. So I got to her office in the middle of the patio, knocked on her door. Felt myself getting paler every knock I gave the door. She opened and i practically fell into her office rambling like a moron. "Hi, I don't know what i'm accused of, do you know? I have no idea why I'm here. I shouldn't be here. I didn't do anything! I was just trying to go home...." She looked at me knowing I was realizing where I was. She sat me down and gave me some water. As I started regaining my capacity to inhale oxygen she went to her drawer and pulled out a little book. She chose a few pages, marked them with a piece of paper and handed it over to me. "I marked the charges that are on your case, read them over so you know what your chances are...." I took the little book and walked over to Chez Vega, I sat on my wool mat and started crying. I couldn't bring myself to look. Little did I know.....