5:00 p.m.

It is evident that the pace of movement around me has quickened. The flow of bodies out of the prison is much less orderly and done with greater purpose than their entry into the stadium. While I spent the day following people as they drifted around the grounds of the prison, even running into a few as they stopped to browse a crafts table, the end of the rodeo marked the signal to “hurry up” and “move out of my way.” As dusk begins to settle on Angola it is clear that the intention of the thousands of tourists tightly packed into the rodeo stadium is to leave the grounds of the prison and head back to their lives “outside” of Angola’s walls. Tourists file out of the stadium through two main exits/entrances. At Angola, darkness is the curtain that signals the end of the performance.