The Migrant Diaries. Lynne Jones

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      Everything he touches is turned into art; moulded plastic bottles form a sculpture in the garden. Next door he has an art school open to all.

      Meanwhile, in the Jungle Books Library, English and French and other classes are held every day. This week Gil Galasso, a famous Maitre D’ from the Basque area, is running a certified course in the ‘Art of the Table.’ I sit watching Galasso, in immaculate blazer and pressed trousers, show four young Sudanese how to make cocktails, match the right wine with cheese, and hold multiple plates. They all hope it will help them find jobs in France. Galasso’s own family migrated to France from Italy in the thirties to escape hunger and find work, just like his students.

       The Jungle, Tuesday 20 October

      At the Bed and Breakfast this morning I met an Iranian refugee with a blind daughter. He needed children’s clothes, so we took him to the warehouse run by L’Auberge Migrant, a long-established Calais Charity. The warehouse is enormous and piled ceiling high with donations mostly from Britain. Much is useful: warm clothing, tents and sleeping bags, shoes and bicycles, all desperately needed. But I am curious as to the thinking of those who give away smart handbags, high-heeled shoes and dirty underwear. Distributions are getting organised, with van runs to different parts of the camp every day.

      Back at the camp, I play chess at Jungle Books with Abdul and Hassan. They did not go to the Tunnel last night. They said they took my advice to learn more, but they are almost certainly going tonight. It’s a wet, chilly, misty morning—a hint of things to come. I walk across the camp to the Dome. Musicians Against Borders have brought musical instruments, and a crowd of Sudanese boys are banging drums and playing guitars. I ask my new Sudanese friend, Adam, to come and join us. Adam sings us an English pop song in a high tenor voice. He invited me into his tent as I was passing yesterday. He is 16 and left Darfur because of the fighting.

      – I wanted a safe country where I could get an education.

      He spent three months getting to Libya where he worked on a building site for another three months to get the 1000 dollars he needed to take a boat with 450 others. In Italy, he got on a train, hid from the police and made it to France. He has an uncle in the North of Britain. He tried jumping onto the channel tunnel train some 19 times, but he got arrested a week ago and was put in jail. When he came up in front of a judge, they told him he was free to go, as he was only 16. So, he is back here.

      In the afternoon there is a Volunteers Meeting. They too are getting organised. Eva has turned up with a chart, drawn onto two large pieces of cardboard. She has mapped all the sectors: sanitation, food, shelter, health care, arts, and education, as well as which groups are trying to address which needs in different parts of the camp. It is the Who, What, Where, When chart beloved by humanitarian communities in emergencies. These volunteers—many of whom have never done anything like this before in their lives—have worked it out for themselves. They have also worked out that they need some kind of security guidelines and a code of conduct: no volunteers consuming alcohol or drugs on the site, for example: Volunteers getting shitfaced is completely inappropriate—someone says. There is a lively discussion on how female volunteers should dress. Tifa, who is Iranian and works in the Women and Children’s Centre, stands up in baggy jeans and a loose long-sleeved top. Her long dark hair is neatly tied.

      – This is the appropriate way for us to dress here. No miniskirts, no tight jeans, no long loose hair and we have to be careful about touching and hugging. It is not appropriate. For many people here, these things are provocations and misunderstood, and we are not the ones who suffer the consequences, it is the women who live with these men. I understand what the men are saying and it’s not polite.

      A woman from No Borders disagrees:

      – They are coming to Europe; they will be living amongst women like us. This is a chance to educate them.

      – This is not the place to start, in a vulnerable community where 90% are young men. There will be time for that. Right now, our job is to protect any women living here from harassment.

      – What about rape alarms?

      – No woman refugee would use a rape alarm. It would be shameful to for them to do so.

      Distribution is also a contentious subject. Mass distributions from the warehouse are efficient and safe, but do they reach the most vulnerable? Smaller distributions are needed, under the control of the communities themselves, but how can we avoid stuff getting onto the black market? What about containers on site and allowing refugee leaders to distribute directly? And what about people who turn up at night? Where should they go?

      There is a call for better coordination with the French NGO’s who have been working with the migrant community for fifteen years; the sudden mass influx of British volunteers has taken everyone by surprise. Notice boards in prominent locations are planned to help the ‘weekend warriors’ (kind people who drive across the Channel for a day to drop off donations) orient themselves and avoid getting their mobiles stolen.

      – This is all very good—a tall, thin young man speaks up—and humanitarianism is essential for people’s day-to-day needs, but what they want is to get to the UK and nothing we have discussed here addresses that…Blankets won’t solve the problem of police violence. Fascist rallies are planned in Calais.

      I don’t completely agree. It’s clear to me, and to the French Authorities, that the existence of the camp itself is politically threatening, it challenges the whole organised asylum process and exposes its weaknesses. In fact, this camp has much more in common with the Occupy movements or Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp,⁶ than any humanitarian operation in which I have been involved. For one thing, the volunteers have been much more successful at breaking down the usual barrier between givers and receivers. At many points in the meeting, I have no idea whether it is a volunteer or refugee voicing a view, and when Tom, who is chairing, announces: If anyone wants to help and volunteer, they may. A volunteer is someone who helps other people. There is no distinction in this respect between volunteer and refugee—no one disagrees.

      The question is where are the big agencies? Alongside MDM, MSF is here. They have been laying down rubble in the mud for the last few days and dealing with toilets and garbage. They tell me they are planning a hospital outside the camp boundaries, but the other big NGOs, and UNHCR and UNICEF, are noticeably absent.

      – It’s completely political—Ben, volunteering in his gap year between Eton and Yale, tells me. He is fluent in French and goes to their coordination meetings. The French authorities don’t want anything that attracts more migrants, but they don’t want it to be so awful it creates a scandal. Possibly in some way we are playing straight into their hands just preventing things tipping over the edge.

      – You’re saying it might be better if there were a mass outbreak of disease or people froze to death?

      – Of course not, but how do we actually get people out of this situation?

      – Argue for HMG to come here and sort out asylum claims jointly with the French. That’s what the UN is asking them to do.

      – It will never happen. The French don’t want this place to be a magnet for refugees all over Europe.

      – They are already coming.

      One of the first films I saw as a child was Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’ There was an unforgettable scene where a child is killed under the carriage СКАЧАТЬ