THREE STORIES
One
His name is Adam – ‘that is my English name’, he says. A resident of The Jungle, today he volunteers to help the team of people who turn up from Britain, France and beyond to support those living there. This morning they are attempting to clear some of the piles of stinking rubbish that have accumulated all over the camp. It is an impossible task: although sack after sack is filled and some of the heaps diminish, cleaning up the immediate environment of some of the temporary homes, it makes only the smallest of dents in the overall mountain which continues to grow.
Adam has a second name, which means Melody – ‘but in English that is a girl’s name I think?’ He implies this name was a whimsical idea of his mother, that he was her ‘flowering’. From Iran, he says, his father from Dubai and his mother from Tehran – or perhaps it is the other way round? Although communities have grown up around particular countries of origin – Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, Eritrea – and residents work hard to preserve their culture, identity is under threat when life is reduced to its most basic: the struggle to stay alive.
He has some things to say about living in The Jungle. He says that the people who live there are 75 parts ‘normal’, which he equates with good – ‘you, me, 75 good, normal’. The other 25 he describes as ‘mafia’ – bad people, who carry guns and knives, pick fights, make the place frightening and dangerous after dark.
He also has views on religion and its needless conflicts: two paths, he demonstrates in the air with his hands, two parallel roads, the Quran, and the Christian path – his name for this seems to relate to ‘mass’, or perhaps ‘Messiah’ – to the same goal: peace. He brings his hands together in that universal image of hands clasping across the world. He is articulate, courteous, handsome, funny, obviously both intelligent and educated. What kind of a world is this, where someone like Adam is reduced to living like this?
Adam has a second name, which means Melody – ‘but in English that is a girl’s name I think?’ He implies this name was a whimsical idea of his mother, that he was her ‘flowering’. From Iran, he says, his father from Dubai and his mother from Tehran – or perhaps it is the other way round? Although communities have grown up around particular countries of origin – Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, Eritrea – and residents work hard to preserve their culture, identity is under threat when life is reduced to its most basic: the struggle to stay alive.
He has some things to say about living in The Jungle. He says that the people who live there are 75 parts ‘normal’, which he equates with good – ‘you, me, 75 good, normal’. The other 25 he describes as ‘mafia’ – bad people, who carry guns and knives, pick fights, make the place frightening and dangerous after dark.
He also has views on religion and its needless conflicts: two paths, he demonstrates in the air with his hands, two parallel roads, the Quran, and the Christian path – his name for this seems to relate to ‘mass’, or perhaps ‘Messiah’ – to the same goal: peace. He brings his hands together in that universal image of hands clasping across the world. He is articulate, courteous, handsome, funny, obviously both intelligent and educated. What kind of a world is this, where someone like Adam is reduced to living like this?
Two
Two boys sit side by side on a bench running alongside the wall of the large tent which houses the Ashram Kitchen. Both wear woollen hats, with scarves which they sometimes pull up over their mouths. This, and the way they swing their legs as they speak, makes them seem like youngsters, teenagers maybe, though from what they say and their grasp of the wider world, they must be grown men. They see their country at the centre, and at the mercy, of a struggle for control and power, not so much at the hands of the Taliban (they are tiny, a small small number of Afghan people, they say) but at the hands of neighbouring countries – Pakistan, India, China – and of the major powers. The USA sounds like ‘Lucia’ in their narrative, but there is nothing foolish or faulty in their analysis. One draws a map of the area on the checked cloth where he sits in an attempt to clarify the situation for his less informed audience. One says his city, the capital, Kabul, was bombed yesterday. ‘Yesterday,’ he emphasises. The other comes from a different city which is also constantly under fire from warring armies. And it’s been going on for 50 years – longer, they say. It’s terrible. They don’t volunteer their own stories, or speak of their families, or their own journeys to the camp, keeping their private nightmares to themselves. Despite what seem like dreadful and dangerous conditions to those listening, The Jungle for them is clearly a refuge, a place of shelter and safety.
Three
Muhammad is an older man, from Tehran. Apparently he has at most ten words of English – ‘good’, ‘eggs’, ‘tomatoes’, ‘tea’, ‘water’, and ‘no English’. He is living opposite the Ashhram Kitchen, in a timber-framed plastic-walled shelter with an earth floor, a chipboard door and chipboard benches which run along two sides of the main room. There is a small rusty metal cylinder in the centre, clearly used for a fire, but it is cold. The back of the shelter is open, with another half-length bench forming a narrow table and a view over the tops of tents and shelters to a line of trees. If you were to keep your eyes at tree level, you might be in England; or France, as indeed you are.
He invites four volunteers, who happen to be outside waiting for a lift, in for tea. He does this without words (apart from ‘eggs’ and ‘tomatoes’). His invitation is made gracefully, and graciously, with his hands, but it is also insistent: there is no possibility of refusing. He tries to learn names, but gives up, laughing apologetically. He settles his visitors on the benches and disappears behind a partition wall, where he must have a stove. In ten or fifteen minutes he reappears with a frying pan of scrambled eggs. He empties an orange box of clean crockery and upturns it on the fire chimney to make a table, on which he puts the pan. A tiny folding stool makes a second table for a bag of sliced bread: use the bread as a spoon, he mimes. The eggs are mixed with tomato and onion and lots of salt, and are delicious. He brings a bottle of water and a cup. Later, there is tea, and then more tea, and photographs. His guests leave, to return to their homes.
He invites four volunteers, who happen to be outside waiting for a lift, in for tea. He does this without words (apart from ‘eggs’ and ‘tomatoes’). His invitation is made gracefully, and graciously, with his hands, but it is also insistent: there is no possibility of refusing. He tries to learn names, but gives up, laughing apologetically. He settles his visitors on the benches and disappears behind a partition wall, where he must have a stove. In ten or fifteen minutes he reappears with a frying pan of scrambled eggs. He empties an orange box of clean crockery and upturns it on the fire chimney to make a table, on which he puts the pan. A tiny folding stool makes a second table for a bag of sliced bread: use the bread as a spoon, he mimes. The eggs are mixed with tomato and onion and lots of salt, and are delicious. He brings a bottle of water and a cup. Later, there is tea, and then more tea, and photographs. His guests leave, to return to their homes.
PHOTOSHOOT
I saw… donations: blankets sleeping bags tents coats and trousers tins of chick peas/fruit/ tomatoes bars of soap hundreds of nappies thousands of toothbrushes not enough loo rolls shampoo & 2 x hair dye: blonde (really) policing: fences barbed wire razor wire passport control border control police vans police cars police scenery: piles of rubbish pools of filthy water broken tents mud conditions unfit for any habitation let alone human indescribable toilets stacks of shipping containers a Jack of hearts in the mud facilities: sturdy timber-framed houses restaurants cafes shops a church a mosque a women and children’s centre an information centre a school the writing on the wall: all welcome writing workshop sudan hot showers english classes ‘PEACE’ women only ‘Happy New Year’ LONG LIVE KURDISTAN info point ‘mr camron we have a message for you’ people: hettie in a fur coat ash in a snow suit adam in a woolly hat braided hair pink and turquoise hair a fearsome mohican smiles handshakes hugs anger despair a hundred people running kindness generosity courage humour resourcefulness patience resilience hope
I heard… volunteers, you are not special, you are normal: you put the humanity in humanity thank you hello-how-are-you I am from Iran/Tehran/Afghanistan thank you very much ‘Dunkirk is the worst refugee camp I have seen anywhere in the world’ (Jeremy Corbyn) two syrians stabbed my name is Muhammad/Adam/Saber thank you laughter singing hammering music the mellifluous sound of chatter in Arabic twenty seconds of flute thank you so much
I smelt… well, imagine
I tasted… lentil lemon dahl lamb balls cous cous bread and jam scrambled eggs three kinds of chai and a snickers bar on the way home
I touched... the button to take the last photo in my mind as we waited for our lift opposite the Ashram Kitchen. A group of men waited in line. In the foreground, three boys walked towards and away, one wrapped head and shoulders in a red and white blanket. There were a few inventive hats. Behind them, the ‘rooftops’ of the temporary city. In front, a boy, twelve, fourteen, perhaps, with a slightly older man – a brother? uncle? father? – let’s say brother. The brother had his arm round the boy, chucked him playfully under the chin. It wasn’t clear what it was about, but it looked like a tender, teasing moment. Both were smiling. Another boy collected the football lying in the mud in front of us and kicked it in front of him, on his way home.
I heard… volunteers, you are not special, you are normal: you put the humanity in humanity thank you hello-how-are-you I am from Iran/Tehran/Afghanistan thank you very much ‘Dunkirk is the worst refugee camp I have seen anywhere in the world’ (Jeremy Corbyn) two syrians stabbed my name is Muhammad/Adam/Saber thank you laughter singing hammering music the mellifluous sound of chatter in Arabic twenty seconds of flute thank you so much
I smelt… well, imagine
I tasted… lentil lemon dahl lamb balls cous cous bread and jam scrambled eggs three kinds of chai and a snickers bar on the way home
I touched... the button to take the last photo in my mind as we waited for our lift opposite the Ashram Kitchen. A group of men waited in line. In the foreground, three boys walked towards and away, one wrapped head and shoulders in a red and white blanket. There were a few inventive hats. Behind them, the ‘rooftops’ of the temporary city. In front, a boy, twelve, fourteen, perhaps, with a slightly older man – a brother? uncle? father? – let’s say brother. The brother had his arm round the boy, chucked him playfully under the chin. It wasn’t clear what it was about, but it looked like a tender, teasing moment. Both were smiling. Another boy collected the football lying in the mud in front of us and kicked it in front of him, on his way home.
AFTERWARDS
Photoshoot is an attempt to capture the myriad impressions of a weekend volunteering in Calais, the way those impressions come at you without letting up and all in a jumble, all the highs and lows, often both at the same time. The three stories are moments that have stayed with me. You will have your own stories, of bananas and onions, packing and sorting, driving and distributing; of the ‘dirty girls’ who bought a washing machine and a tumble dryer and wash and dry clothes for people in the camp in Dunkirk; of the Airbnb booking which enabled a refugee family to have a night away with hot showers, a dining table, DVDs for the kids. You will have your own moments of frustration, anger, despair as well as laughter and – not a word we use often away from a religious context – joy. I remember that, on our way back, Dan said it takes a day or two for the emotional impact to hit. Meanwhile, perhaps like you, my first day back in Cambridge has felt a bit unreal; as if I’ve left part of myself behind. Or is it that I have so many vivid memories of the last couple of days, that ‘normal’ life pales a bit by comparison? I don’t want to romanticise the situation there – even if Dunkirk is ten times worse, there are still aspects of The Jungle which don’t bear thinking about. But I was inspired by tales of volunteers and residents joining together for the impossible task of moving all the newly constructed shelters away from the area targeted for the bulldozers in time to save them. I noticed how the newly flattened ‘100 metre buffer zone’ is clearly an attempt to contain and also to conceal the refugees. And back at home, I watched the youtube video of the French police assaults with tear gas and rubber bullets, before the bulldozers moved in. I’ve felt tearful and angry and elated by turns and it’s been hard to be patient with the trivial concerns which clutter up my time here. Somehow my day picking litter and the people I met feels like an intense and important experience and I’m left with a reminder of the kindness of strangers, as usual particularly the poorest. I can’t wait to go back.
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