Calais — Day 10

I awoke on Day 10 in Calais tired. My brain wouldn’t shut off and my body is exhausted from coughing. I went downstairs for breakfast to yet another bustling dining room, but also saying many goodbyes as people I had only just met on Saturday were taking the Ferry before the bad weather set in.

I asked around to find a ride, only not to the warehouse, but to the Jungle. Though I had felt previously that I was more use in the warehouse, I was sure there must be some place in the Jungle that I could be useful. That was when I met Louise.

Louise is a beautiful Danish social worker who has lots of experience working in disaster response. She has worked on the Boxing Day tsunami, in Serbia with refugees, in the Philippines, etc. Someone was kind enough to detour by the Jungle and take us there, and together we hiked in. I say “hiked” because Louise was carrying a big pack of supplies on her back and heading to the “Kitchen in Calais”. I had intended to see if I could offer some skills in the first aid area, perhaps sorting medical supplies to free up the doctors and putting my pharmacy knowledge in to action, but fate had other plans for me.

Louise took me on a “tour” of the camp. Being fairly early in the morning in Jungle time, it was very quiet, not many people around — a great time for taking photos and exploring. We stopped at the Eritrean church where they were holding a service. We didn’t go inside but stood in the small yard outside and listened to the beautiful, moving, spiritual but distinctly African feeling music coming from their loud speakers. Women said prayers at an outside mural painted on the wall (of a Saint?), then removed their shoes and went inside. I didn’t take photos out of respect but considering I am not religious, I was almost moved to tears. The few refugees who were out and about seemed in good spirits considering the gale force winds that seem to be a permanent part of life in Calais. I was offered fruit, custard creams and chai tea. I accepted some of it — we know that it is important for morale if the refugees can offer something to us and we take it; the power relations and social relations between volunteers and refugees shifts to an empowered space whereby they don’t feel like charity recipients all of the time.

Importantly Louise also showed me to the “Kitchen in Calais” where she works. A small but sturdy wooden hut at the back of the camp near to the Syrian section where it is quiet. That means the toilets there are also quiet and somewhat more clean (HOORAY!).

As we talked and went to the Kitchen we realised that the refugees who work there were still sleeping. At this point a huge weather front came through. We got soaked running for the nearest cafe which we never made it to. We bumped in to some volunteers who had a large donation of food, so we had to head back, wake up the guys, open the kitchen and bring in all the stock. Suddenly it seemed, I had inadvertently become part of a new project. Louise asked Masouk if I could stay and I was quickly assigned a pile of tomatoes to “chop-chop.”

One thing led to another and I “chop-chopped” for some 5 or 6 hours. Together, Louise and I “chop-chopped” tomatoes, garlic, ginger, green beans, and other things whilst Masouk and his small team of refugees from Iraq, Kuwait and Syria cooked up a storm in huge vats over gas stoves.

The Kitchen in Calais is a small space and it was cramped with supplies, pots, pans, stoves, vats, etc. We constantly had to reorganise and move things. It was in some ways like a mini version of the warehouse where it morphed and changed over the day as we moved from one stage of cooking to the next. The floor space was at one point for washing, another for tables for chopping and so on. But this team worked with endless laughter, smiles and fun. Somehow we found our way through the language barriers, sometimes with help of translation. They taught us words and laughed at us when we got them wrong. The guys had a great time talking about my name “Ali” as a boys name in their culture. At the end of it all, this rag-tag team of people managed to feed 1,000 or so mouths last night.

We had a conveyor belt style of distribution out of a small delivery hole/ door (think fast food McDonald’s in a refugee camp but much better food!). The weather outside was diabolical. 100km per hour winds meant that many plates were blown away before people could even take a mouthful. We did our best, urging them to hold on tight. We fast ran out of disposable serving trays (Ugh! so many were given and they were polystyrene — an environmental disaster!) and resorted to plastic plates and cutlery. We asked for it to be returned and then a team started washing up, so we could keep serving.

A young 19 year old Syrian boy (man?) who speaks English and Arabic worked on the delivery hole as I passed him a meal of rice and dahl with a side serve of pineapple or radishes — we use whatever we can to get fresh food in to people. Though I have met many refugees here (such as 31 year old Yousef yesterday from Western Sudan who was falsely accused and imprisoned and had to run), none had yet really captured my heart in the way that this young man has. He is kind and gentle, softly spoken, a beautiful soul. He is from Aleppo, has family in the UK and an Aunt in the camp. He dreams of being a biomedical engineer. He walked through Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, etc and ended up in the Jungle. Many times he has tried to get to his family in the UK. He got on one lorry and ended up spending 30 hours locked in there with no food or water. The police found him, took him to the French border, dumped him and told him to walk back to the Jungle. He’s been here 5 and a half months.

As we had a lull in the line before the next wave of people came, he asked me “do you have refugees in Australia?” I said “yes” and he seemed surprised. “Where from?” he asked, and I told him a list of countries. He seemed more surprised. He said “you have a camp?” I told him “no, we have detention centres.” He seemed confused, so I explained “like a prison.” From there ensued a conversation where I explained to him the route people travel from the Middle-East to Australia, and how they get here, why they are in detention and what will happen to them. I told him about our government and their attitude to boat arrivals. He asked me “do you have Syrian people in these prisons?” and I told him sadly “yes.”

Something happened in that moment. It was like everything stopped. I didn’t hear the bustling kitchen or the line outside. We just stood. He looked in to my eyes, I looked in to his and a tremendous sadness welled up in both of us. My eyes filled up, so did his and we just stared at each other for what felt like minutes but was only seconds. It was like we saw each others shared pain and compassion and we were bonded in this shitty, unfair, screwed up situation. He went very quiet and I said simply “I’m sorry. That’s why I’m here”. He replied “thank you”. The plates started coming and we got back to work. I will never forget that moment.

By 7 pm I started flagging. Talking all day really aggravates my cough and I had a coughing fit at one point. All the refugees in the kitchen rallied around me looking so concerned. My friend translated for me “they want to know, do you need to go to a hospital? We will take you”. Even though they have no car, and don’t know where the hospital is, such was their hospitality and care. I laughed though I could have easily also cried.

At 8.30pm we left to walk to find the one taxi driver in Calais who will come to the camp. We have his phone number. He said he would be 30 to 45 minutes. So our friends took us to one of the local bars on the main drag in the camp. This was my first time in the camp after dark and they insist on chaperoning us out. Yes, this camp has restaurants, bars, shops, a “nightclub” with disco ball. It is NOT (as has been reported by some unethical media outlets) that refugees are living it up in Calais. These are places where people can congregate at night to keep warm, keep their spirits up and have a sense of normality in what is an otherwise parallel universe.

I had “milky tea” (aka Chai) and the men shared shisha. Though exhausted, we all laughed and let our hair down for 30 minutes. Then Masouk and his friends walked our group of 4 girls out of the camp. On the way we talked about their attempts to get to the UK and their friends who have died trying. I asked them why they try for the UK when it is so dangerous and why not stay in France. Their answers confirm what I have heard so many times before — they have family there, they don’t know how to speak French but they do know English, they have an 81% success rate in UK for asylum applications which they do not have in France, etc, etc. Mr taxi driver was nowhere to be seen but a hatchback car with French plates pulled over. Louise spoke to the driver and he offered us a lift to the hostel. I was nervous but this young man had lived in The Jungle for 9 months, knows people there and was desperate to help us. He politely drove us through Calais central to the hostel, dropped us right out front, and wouldn’t take a cent from us for his trouble. I can’t imagine a French national doing that for us. Trade me some refugees for some locals any day of the week.

By the time I got back it was so late and I was too tired to even think. I was devastated and heartbroken, happy and hopeful all at the same time. I went to bed thinking about my new friends, knowing that they will keep trying to jump on trains and lorries, risking their lives in order to piece them back together. I will never be the same. I will take the day off tomorrow to try and shake this chest infection once and for all and will go back and work for them again on Tuesday. Perhaps I have found my Jungle family.