‘WALL’

May 2025

We are once again honoured to share the latest reflections Alex Holmes, longterm volunteer at the Maria Skobtsova House in Calais, recently returned to the UK.

‘WALL’

I write the Wall. I sing the Wall. I am the Wall.

One kilometre long. Four metres high. ‘The Great Wall of Calais’ running along the main highway towards the port, has aged since its completion in 2016. The climbing plants positioned to reduce the visual impact for drivers have crept through to its western face along which run a line of refugees’ tents. The ‘Stadium Camp’, occupied, abandoned, now re-occupied.

Great Wall of Calais. Song Wall. Story Wall. ‘Listen!’ says Dawit turning up the volume on his phone. The rhythmic sound of Ethiopian singer Tariku Gankisi’s song ‘Dishta Gina’. He sways to the music, rubbing his hands to warm them. The morning sun is bright, but night time temperatures fall below freezing. ‘ማነው ያለዉ? What stories lie behind our smiles, waiting to be shared’ sings Gankisi. ‘ቻሜ ጋካ. Let’s explore how our stories intertwine beautifully.’ ‘አንቺ ከኔ. Our individual journeys converge into one.’ A fire has been lit, coffee prepared. Strong, sweet, laced with ginger, it burns the palate. Gankisi sings on. ‘ወይዲሂ. Through our shared experiences, we find strength and comfort.’ In the distance a cockerel crows.

Whispering Wall.

Tell me your secrets! Tell me your dreams! ‘I want everything. I want a wife and children and money. I want UK’ Fikru stops suddenly, his attention diverted by three women who stroll by, chatting in the bright sunshine. ‘Ahh, Eritrean women, they are nice…and I want power and control so I can make peace’. ‘I want my dream for my children,’ says Semret. ‘They need security, opportunities, travel’. ‘I want a sugar mum,’ says Nahom, his face lighting up with a broad grin. Emblazoned on his hoodie ‘VISION IS THE ART OF SEEING THE INVISIBLE’.

Prayer Wall.

Late afternoon. Asr, the third of the five daily Muslim prayers, the Salah. Cardboard carpets the ground. They pray facing Mecca, facing east, facing the wall. Perhaps for a moment a boat in their minds. بِسْمِ اللَّهِ مَجْرَاهَا وَمُرْسَاهَا. Noah says, "Embark in it. It will sail in the name of God, in His Name it will sail and in His Name it will cast anchor.”* Nearby, a Christian image hangs from the ivy on the wall. Jesus, Mary, St Michael, St George. ‘Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee’. Haben shares his favourite line from scripture.* ‘These words take away my stress,’ he says. He wears a bracelet from which hangs a pendant depicting Mary and the child Jesus. ‘Without God, my life is nothing.’

Sound Wall.

A deep base thrum. The military chopper circles overhead like a giant bird of prey, the wall amplifying its machine gun staccato. The sound drowns out the near continuous drone of trucks passing by on the highway. Half an hour later, the ‘bird’ has gone. The brief gift of silence that follows is sliced through by a sudden tuneful trill. A willow warbler singing in the nearby scrubland. Late evening. Tiny bird, big song. Prelude to the night drones that will shatter dream time.

Midnight Wall.

Mama’s Café. Stay for dinner says Mama. Preparation is underway. Potatoes are peeled, cut into chips and fried in oil on the fire. A few metres away, Awet stirs berbere spice into the sauce she’s making. We will have pasta says Mama. And salad. The fading daylight is replaced by the glare of the security lights that blaze along the wall. Suddenly everyone but Mama disappears. They go to a meeting she says. Night time now. Venus, a pinhead of light beneath the slim moon in the western sky. The community returns, dinner is served, one large bowl into which everything has been added, chips, pasta, sauce and salad. On the stroke of midnight, a willow warbler bursts into song.

“One can have insight into everything, every impossibility and every stone wall, and yet not resign oneself to a single one of these impossibilities and stone walls.”*

* Qur’an, Surah Hud, verse 41.

* psalm 119 verse 11.

* Dostoyevsky. ‘Notes from Underground.’

All names have been changed.