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 the camp, groups of men are standing around in tense crowds. A volunteer comes up and says—All the volunteers should leave, as they are threatening us as well. Who? It’s unclear.
– Why not ask the police to intervene, as they are standing right there—be nice if they could be encouraged to play a protective role?
– They never help.
– There is no harm in asking.
– The problem is the traffickers—a large man with a turban tells me.
We don’t like them. One of them is very dangerous. He attacked someone with a knife. Now the refugees have attacked them back.
– So why not tell the police who this guy is?
– Too dangerous.
Maddie and the other volunteers echo this. They cannot be seen talking with the police, or they will be at risk as well.
A tall French man, Patrick, and I decide that, as we are just shortterm visitors, we can take the risk. We explain what is going on to the policemen. Fully kitted, they go down to the end of the camp. I don’t know if they resolved it. Having turned myself into a stool pigeon, I head back to Calais. The threatened storm has not materialised, but the winds are strong enough to make my car shake. I hope I have not made myself a persona non grata. When I come back, I will wear dark glasses and a different hat.
The Jungle, Tuesday 9 February
– Proximity to the crisis should not define responsibility, there has to be a sharing… The UN Special Rapporteur for International Migration, is saying on the World Service as I get up.
Turkey will, if push comes to shove, take 600,000 more refugees from Syria. The EU is asking them to barricade those same refugees and stop them travelling any further. Twenty more drowned on their way to Greece yesterday. Meanwhile, Cameron is trying to terrify the residents of Southern England with prospects of Calais-style encampments in the lovely South Downs if we leave the EU.
When I get to camp and park in front of one of the distribution points, there is a small riot going on. A thin Kurdish man has a long metal pole and is threatening one of the Sudanese. Large groups of people are separating them, and the man appears to calm down. But then, another young black guy comes and pushes to the front of the line, and I see the Kurd rile up again. I walk forward and link my arm through that of the young black man, smile and shake my head, and say—no queue jumping, let’s walk to the back. He is so astonished that he goes without protest. Then I stand in the centre with my arms folded, looking extremely stern.
– I am old enough to be the mother of most of you here, so no queue jumping! I am watching you. Another Kurd is translating. Everyone laughs.
– And by the way, if you all want to go to the UK, this is the time to learn our habits. We queue. We love queuing. We believe you have to be fair. First come, first served, form a line and NO QUEUE JUMPING. So now is your chance to learn to queue!
More laughter. I am watching you…
Actually, I am not. I leave to go and see someone, but I come back in twenty minutes and they are all queuing quietly besides Riyad’s caravan. He tells me there are no problems, and the black guy, who is still in his place, gives me a smile and a wave.
The volunteers running the new Baloo Youth Centre and some others from Jungle Books want to discuss problem children—one boy in particular is always fighting with everyone. He is very emotional and always sorry afterwards. Unsurprisingly, he is completely without parents or friends.
We all agree on the importance of keeping the Youth Centre safe; children cannot bring in any sticks or knives. There are enough male staff here to give the boys a lot of individual attention, so if G is breaking up the toys, one of them can both exclude him from the Centre, and stay with him at the same time so that he can be prevented from doing more damage, but also receive attention and care, and discuss what led to any outbursts. I call it ‘accompanied exclusion’.
The Jungle, Wednesday 10 February
The migrant crisis appears to have stimulated a new kind of humanitarianism. These social spaces have all been created entirely by the refugees themselves, assisted by a network of independent volunteers and local French associations. The volunteers come from all over Europe: I have met Belgians, Germans, Swiss and Dutch, but the majority are British people who have heard about the crisis on the news, looked up a local support network on social media, and jumped on the train