going to prison

Recently I´ve started to work in a prison for girls, and I´m really enjoying it. It´s good to get back to doing 'youthwork' - but it´s quite different from everything I´ve done before. The girls are between 14 and 17 years old, although some of them also have their babies or young children with them. Initially I was only allowed to preach - without any kind of participation or interaction from the girls. Now the Director has grown to trust me a bit (I think) and I´m allowed to do more interactive discussions which has been great.
But there´s strange limitations in working in a prison. The most obvious, is that I´m not allowed to use anything that the girls could take and use as a weapon.... so no pens and paper. But then there´s other limitations that aren´t so obvious. So far the girls have had a varied response to what I´ve done. Some have been very quiet and not given any sort of verbal response. Others can be quite talkative - and always want to answer the questions --- perhaps like any other group. But there is always lots of 'right answers'. Even when I make a big thing of explaining that I´m interested in their real opinions etc, somehow people always come to the perceived right answers really quickly.
Let me explain...... most of the time, I think there aren´t many 'right answers' - what I mean is that I think there is much more benefit in an honest discussion, with all the messy disagreements and inconsistent opinions, than in the tidy polished religious answers. Mostly I think that the answers that 'religion' gives, are inadequate - or answering completely irrelevant questions. For me, our real journey of faith is found in the struggling with issues and questions and the search for God in that - often he answers us with mystery and further questions rather than answers!
So anyway - back to the prison, I don´t know whether it is simply because of the guards who are lurking nearby that prevents the girls being honest, or a much bigger issue of religiousness here in Guatemala, where many people memorize huge chunks of the Bible - but can´t ever put it into their own words because they don´t actually understand what they´re memorising.
But it´s good. It´s a challenge for me to think of new ways to encourage the girls to open up, and to communicate with them something of God´s heart for them - not the neat and tidy answers - but the unconditional and uncontrolable love that he has for them. I keep praying.