Lottsathoughts

I have just returned from my sixth trip volunteering in Calais to alleviate the suffering of the refugees there. The following contains my initial reflections on the experience. We all build narratives in order to make sense of the world and to interact with others in it. But it is important to remember that the narratives are superimposed, that they come from one particular vantage point and that they have arbitrary starting and finishing points. Take the refugee situation in Calais. Is it just about Calais? Not really, no. Every time there is an eviction in Paris or Brussels, a few days later there is a wave of new arrivals in Calais. Paris and Brussels have their own inbound streams of influence. And every time refugees are forcibly evicted Calais by night from Calais, as many were this week, the problem is simply exported to another French location. It's also about the UK because it is our border. Historical decisions about where to put the border places the...

I have just returned from my fourth visit to Calais to volunteer with the charities that are helping the refugees who are stuck there. The problem seems as intractable as ever and I don't pretend to know the answer. Indeed, I would argue that there is no answer, if by “answer” we want a magic wand that can remove both current and future refugees from Calais without excessive state-sponsored force, give the town over entirely to white, French-born citizens and not take unlimited and unexamined numbers of refugees into the UK for an indefinite period. That said, I am concerned that our society in general and our Government in particular takes an odd approach to problems where simple answers are elusive. There is an old saying that the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same action again and again, expecting a different outcome, yet that seems to sum up the attitude of the French and British Governments on this problem. The French seem convinced that 24/7 harrass...

A New Year. An old problem. Uppermost in my mind at the moment is the ongoing refugee disaster in Calais. This has been out of the mainstream media for some time now, since the closure of The Jungle in October 2016. Maybe everyone believes that the plan worked – closing the camp, we were told, would make the refugees themselves vanish. You have to wonder where these ideas come from – do the politicians themselves believe these things? Or do they just cynically say them anyway, knowing that the press has the attention span of a gnat and will be gone before you can say “safe drinking water”? As everyone who was previously involved foresaw and warned, the refugees are still there – only now there is nowehere safe for them. Nowhere to pitch a tent. Nowhere to have a shower or use a toilet. Nowhere to cook or to get legal assistance. Nowhere to get warm or dry. No way for charities to keep formal track of who is who, and therefore, much greater difficutly in protecting unaccompanied chil...

I've been to The Jungle in Calais several times to help with the refugee crisis. What I did was almost nothing, and yet alongside thousands of others who also did almost nothing, it all helped. But this extraordinary woman was in it for the long run. I met her on my first day when she showed me around and told me how things worked. She led the warm-up and daily briefing for volunteers. Her testimony reminds me of what I saw. The unexpected blossoming of love and beauty in the jaws of degredation and barbaric humiliation. She and dozens (hundreds?) like her gave all they had. And to witness such selfless giving from another moved me in a way I had never imagined possible. She will pay for that gift for the rest of her life. No one should see what she saw. Don't imagine this is over. The goalposts have moved for sure. But refugees are still risking daily arrest and a beating just for surviving, in hiding. Volunteers now risk fines for handing out food. Watching thi...

I'm waiting to board the Eurostar to leave Calais and head home. It's been quite a week. A very stark realisation of what the relentless cold feels like when you can't get indoors. Again, as ever, in awe and emotional gratitude at the extraordinary sacrifice of the long term volunteers who have given up so much and who toil daily for no reward in order to help others. Many of them are so young - barely half my age in some cases. God knows what this will all look like in years to come but the sordid news from Venice today makes me ashamed and terrified for our own humanity: a refugee drowning in the Grand Canal, in full view of tourists, and all they could think to do was take photos. The Help Refugees warehouse itself is almost a ghost-town compared with my previous visits. It seems that operations will be scaled down next month, but with refugees again beginning to congregate in the town, I wonder what will take its place. Tonight I feel very sad. Much more emotional th...

A little reflecting on Calais today. It has been bloody cold today - never got above freezing. Actually whilst working, I was quite warm enough and removed layers. But immediately you stop, the cold seeps in. And that made me wonder about people who are living under canvas in this. Without the hot shower of the illustrious Premiere Classe Hotel to look forward to. It made chopping firewood feel very 'real'. The future looks very uncertain - migrant numbers to Europe are expected to rise again in 2017. Already the refugees are starting to be seen around Calais again. As one long term volunteer said to me, this is the 4th time they've cleared the camp(s) - why should we expect the same problem not to recur this time? But it looks like Help Refugees is pulling out. So what happens next? I have no answers and am very poorly informed of plans or projections. I just weep for anyone who has lost or left their home for whatever reason, and is now fighting just to survive...

I am going back to Calais next week to work alongside the charity Help Refugees. Specifically I will be working in the Woodyard, providing firewood for refugees to use for cooking and heat. The most obvious question is “why?...didn't they close The Jungle?” The answer is, yes, The Jungle is closed. However, there remains a much smaller camp at Dunkirk, mainly for women and children, to which the Calais warehouse and Woodyard send help on a daily basis.  In addition, Calais now acts as a hub, sending aid directly to Syria, Greece and Lebanon. As widely anticipated, evicting people from Calais brought short-term solutions, but has also led to refugees congregating elsewhere. There is now a terrible problem in Paris, where many refugees sleep every night on pavements.The police do not allow them to put up tents, and if they catch them they confiscate even sleeping bags. This in sub-zero temperatures, rain and snow.  This refugee crisis is worse than anything seen s...

I can't stop going on about Calais. Today there are over 1500 unaccompanied children who have been cut off from all they know. They are denied access to lawyers. They have no information on what is going to happen now. ALL the officials have gone. Literally the only adults left are policemen - doesn't that sound like a recipe for disaster? They have had their water cut off. There is no food or warmth. The toilet facilities are not cleaned and are beyond disgusting – ankle deep in festering pools of raw human sewage. Thank God for volunteers like Help Refugees. After the media circus has moved on, these amazing volunteers continue as they have done for months. Now providing 1500 meals 3 times a day. Plus drinking water. And emergency help such as ferrying a child to hospital earlier. The volunteers are not allowed access to the containers where the children are housed. What on EARTH is this about? I've messaged the Home Secretary Amber Rudd twice in 3 days but along...

Today, The Jungle in Calais burns. I have been aware of the inadequacy of BBC news service for some time but today has laid it utterly bare. The BBC reports throughout the day have toed what is presumably the official line - all gone to plan, nobody left, all peaceful etc. The truth is heartbreakingly different. Entirely predicted by volunteers, the issue of the unaccompanied children was disastrously mismanaged. Increasingly panicky messages were coming out about children being ordered back into the raging fires and the only safe-havens were closed by lunchtime. At 9pm tonight volunteers were driving these children to the aid-warehouse for safety because authorities failed to act. I no longer have confidence in our government and our BBC to act and report truthfully and with integrity. I, for one, have wept today following the plight of these children for whom I can do nothing.

Back in the UK and reflecting on Calais and the 10,000 people there dependent on our help. Jim and I ended up with very different experiences and yet ultimately very similar. I spent all my time outdoors in the woodyard whereas Jim was in the warehouse. We therefore met and talked with entirely different people. Every volunteer has a different story. Many (possibly most) are there on their own, answering some inner voice that compels them to get involved. They are all ages, all nationalities, all backgrounds. Self-employed musicians and actors, corporate employees using their precious annual leave, the unemployed and the retired. Some very physically fit, many not so. The jobs are many and varied. Needless to say the woodyard is physically punishing but even there we had a lady yesterday with a bad back who found she could help by standing at the saw-station removing nails from planks. Some came with money, some with donations, some came with just their time and enthusiasm. The oper...

A new first for me - foraging at the tip! Came away with a truckload of wood and then spent the rest of the day helping break and saw it up for firewood. The mood around the impending eviction is wary. Many believe that the demolition of the camp will achieve little beyond destroying the homes and few possessions of desperate people. New refugees are expected to continue to arrive. Maybe more and more smaller camps will continue to spring up along the coast - there are several already. The trouble with this is that it becomes much harder to provide aid if everyone is spread out. Oh what a mess. Jim and I saw a small group of refugees appear to make a half-hearted run at a lorry. No answers. Only continued concern for these humans in distress.

So. ..10,000 people living in squalor and uncertainty. Apparently they will all be forcibly moved on in the next month. A good many possessions will be lost I suspect. One in ten of them is an unaccompanied child. The *hope* is that the UK will get its act together and take care of these children but many who are involved fear these children will be overlooked and prey to traffickers. Meanwhile many of the helpers are not convinced that the problem will now go away - they think unofficial camps will begin to reappear as soon as the press has moved on. Who knows? But for the foreseeable future people still need to eat and stay warm every bit as much as normal. What a time to be here.

My short stay in Calais is almost done. Another back-breaking day helping to clear up the yard ready for a big delivery. It's been enlightening but far too brief to understand everything but here's a few salient points. The Jungle DOES still exist in Calais - our press may have given the impression that it has gone but it hasn't (the officials moved it out of sight though). It's currently home to over 5,000 refugees with c50 more arriving every day. There are steel fences and patrols of policeman in riot-gear everywhere. Yesterday saw the use of tear gas in the camp which disrupted aid-distribution and caused stress for residents.  At the last census c120 children had gone missing, presumed to traffickers who are rife. The only refugees I met were charming and friendly with stories of escape from fighting, Taliban and dictators. Many are highly educated and well-qualified - doctors, teachers etc. Some have almost no English.  The big aid organi...

I'm in Calais this week, to volunteer at the refugee camp. I've never been before and I don't directly know anyone else who has, so I'm really not sure what to expect. I'm apprehensive, but it feels too important to me not to be here, albeit a fleeting visit. Everything I've read about it appalls me on a humanitarian level.  It's grey here but not raining! Hurrah! Really strange journey from the Eurostar station (Calais Frethun) into the town centre, through countryside liberally bisected with enormous steel fences. Turns out these are here to prevent easy movement by refugees – I gather the British tax-payer has funded these, to a considerable degree.  I met and shared a taxi with another volunteer who is returning for repeat visit. He went straight to the kitchen to help prepare the 3,000 – 4,000 hot meals that are sent out every single day. Apparently 3 or 4 chefs (of whom he is 1) will manage this with the help of unskilled volunteers like me...