The Migrant Diaries. Lynne Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ out, clutching our plastic cups full of seeds.

      We form a circle. Tom says a few words about remembering all the people who had come through, those who had stayed, and those who had not made it, and we have two minutes of silence. Meanwhile, the sunlight thinks it’s in a Turner painting and lights up the mass of dark grey clouds piling up above the camp, and we all walk across the muddy fields, as our seeds swirl out of the plastic cups in small tornadoes. A cluster of policemen wander down from their spot on the motorway, and, after polite discussion with Maia, tell us we have ten minutes to turn around and walk back whence we came. We do as we are told, while three van loads of police with riot shields form a small cordon to walk behind us. Wildflower seeds, so difficult to deal with, they drift in the wind and spring up anywhere.

      I head off to the Women and Children’s tent where Domdom, a retired French computer engineer from Calais, has set up a cinema. A delighted group of small children are watching Kung Fu Panda, with subtitles in four languages. Unfortunately, four teenage boys are bored and unhappy. One holds a long thin piece of metal; another has a knife. They are not threatening anyone, but they keep messing with the computer to the point where Domdom has had enough and shuts it down, to the distress of the smaller ones watching. They are all unaccompanied boys that Liz has taken under her wing. When she is there, they are contained and happy. She manages to provide affection and security, combined with clear boundaries, and they respect her. But when she is away, they run riot. When I suggest disarming them at the door, one of the volunteers snaps at me.

      – We have no exclusion policy and we have to look after the most vulnerable children.

      – But the most vulnerable are not always the noisiest and most aggressive. These boys are needy in one way, but so are some of the quiet younger ones. It may not be possible to work with them all in one place.

      – You don’t work here day after day!

      Certainly true. I retreat. The good thing is that a Youth Centre is starting this week. Besides indoor activities, Jess, Ben, Johnny and Jake will be organising boxing, football and cricket matches in the muddy space created by the cordon sanitaire. Hopefully, it will be a more attractive place for these teenagers.

      I have found Abdul. After the movie, he and his brother walk me back to his Caravan, untidy as the worst student bedsit, but at least dry and warm. Abdul also has a lawyer trying to track down his relatives in the UK, so he, too, has stopped trying to get onto trains. Just now, he was upset because someone stole his bicycle.

      – And too many people have died. People outside the camp are attacking us!

       The Jungle and Grand Synthe, Monday 8 February

      I am determined to get Adam to school. I find him coming from Salaam carrying breakfast: a carton of milk and a bag with some bread, jam and butter, and we head off to Jungle Books. There is a new sign up: “Didn’t make it to England? Keep calm and come to English lessons.”

      Adam tells me he is absolutely uninterested in stories. We select two horrible histories: one on mediaeval Britain and one on the 20th century—factually accurate and funny with pictures. Perfect.

      We go to see Cath who runs the radio station at Jungle books to see if he might like to help make radio programmes. Can I sing? He asks when she questions what he would like to record. Sarah arrives, and after a quick chat establishing that he completed grade 7 of primary school, tells him that he would be perfect for Class 2.

      Adam says he has to deliver a charger to a friend and promises to come back. I am uncertain whether this is procrastination. I will just keep trying. Rowan and I head off to Dunkirk.

      This camp is different. Just off the motorway into Grand Synthe, there is an upmarket housing development of detached villas with steep tiled roofs and dormer windows. It is surrounded by a forest: a nature reserve between highway and estate. I was admiring the living fence of trees that had been built to contain it, when I looked to ground level and saw that the woods were filled with scrappy tents held down by boulders with piles of rotting garbage and sodden clothes, which were intersected by deep rivers of mud—much worse than Calais.

      Almost all Kurds,—Rowan explains—they have given up trying through Calais.

      The only good news is that a new camp is being constructed by the local authorities, and after some tussles, apparently it will not be ‘closed.’ MSF insisted they would have nothing to do with a closed camp and won. Except, Maddie explains, the position next to a fenced off highway on one side and a heavily fenced area on the other makes it feel closed. Maddie is one of the key volunteers here. We find her standing on the single cobbled road, talking into a radio.

      She is frantic because there is an Amber warning out for major winds coming at night, and she wants a contingency plan for families if tents blow down. The tents in the New Camp have already blown down. MSF has refused to let her use their warehouses in the worst case. In the meantime, she immediately dispatches me to the small school and asks me to call on a family she is worried about.

      The school is in a wooden hut. When we arrive, Lydia is trying to lay down new planks of wood over the mud beside the boot racks, while stopping a 2-year-old from escaping. Inside, a handful of Kurdish boys and girls sit with another young volunteer.

      Lydia is a nursery schoolteacher with multiple concerns: What to do with the slightly older, more hyperactive boys? How to find more long-term volunteers so that children can be divided into age-appropriate groups? She also wants ways to allow the children to be physically active in a small space. There, at least, I can help. I promise to do a movement session when we have more volunteers on Wednesday. I get out my puppets, and everyone grabs one. The rat and turtle are fighting, as are the cat and lion. It’s interesting how the default mode of action here is aggression. I stand on my head. Long ago, I discovered that this is an excellent way to get the attention and quieten a hyperactive group of small children who are all fighting with one another, having spent far too long cooped up in tiny shelters or cramped caravans. They all want to learn how to do it.

      I head off to see the family. Hosein has lined his shelter with blankets, and he has a small stove. He tells me his story while his two small sons run in and out to play with the puppets. His wife and baby son were in one lorry. He and the two boys were in another. His lorry got stopped by the police. Her lorry made it to the UK. Now, the boys cry all the time asking—where is our mother? He is so stressed he cannot sleep. He shows me some paracetamol that MSF provided and shakes his head. It does not help. He does not know what to do.

      – First of all, let’s get the children into school every day so they have something to do and are more tired. Secondly, now that your wife is actually in the UK, you have a better chance of joining her, so rather than trying a lorry again, you need some legal advice as to what are the best options.

      Once again, I think a legal training might have been more useful than a medical one. I promise to return with more information and to take the children to the school on Wednesday.

      On my way out of the camp, a policeman stops me and asks me to open my rucksack. I pull out my tortoise, rat and cat. He waves me on. Sitting in my car, parked at the shopping centre, I can feel the wind strengthening. Meanwhile, a volunteer comes up to me and tells me there has been a knife fight at the end of the camp.

      I go back to the camp. This time, a red haired 20-year-old policeman tells me that I cannot go back in unless I have a paper. I explain that I have no paper but have been here all day. I pull out the puppets again. Confronted with my sobbing cat, he relents.

      Inside СКАЧАТЬ