“EXILED”

We are pleased, as many times over the years, to share the latest reflection from Alex Holmes, recently returned from another period of time volunteering in Calais, northern France. All names have been changed.

“EXILED”

Calais, March 2026

‘I am forever thankful to God for taking me from hell to a safer place, a day I will never forget. May everyone experience this blessing soon.’ Yemane‘s Facebook page. ‘Hell’ is signified by the Libyan flag; ‘a safer place’, by the Italian. There’s an accompanying video, a celebration of broad smiles, blue sea, a crowded boat taking Eritreans and others into exile. The soundtrack, a joyous Eritrean song: ‘Asey Asey….hurrah hurrah, my heart is rejoicing, I am rejoicing inside, my strength renewed….’

‘Come and eat shiro with us!’ Yemane’s invitation. 6.30 pm, dusk descending towards the end of dank Calais day. The No.2 bus, after a circuitous route that passes yet another field of rocks designed to deter exiles from camping, stops outside the Lycée du Detroit, its final halt. Nearby, a large notice announces the inauguration just five days previously by Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart of a new park, ‘Parc Ovide’. Ovid, the Roman poet exiled in 8 CE by Emperor Augustus to Tomis 2000 kilometres from Rome on the Black Sea. The site of Ovid Park, explains the notice, had previously been infested with Japanese Knotweed, an invasive species that must be eradicated. An exiled poet. An invasive species. Eradication. Dark irony emerging from the psychic depths of the city of Calais.

A rough muddied track with water-filled wheel ruts that reflect the dwindling light, leads off the road towards a wasteland of swamp, stunted trees and serpentine paths. There’s an insistent back tone, the mingling of sparrows chattering in the brambles and the drone of tail to tail evening traffic. Everywhere, the discarded residue of living: a supermarket trolley, a single laceless trainer, a squashed tube of toothpaste. The sodden ground subsumes a grinning teddy bear and beside it, atop a pile of abandoned clothes, a bathroom tile sporting the word ‘Relax’. A goods train rumbles slowly by on the adjacent rail track.

We’d met in a Calais bus shelter. Tekle and Yemane, chatting away to each other in Tigrinya, and listening to habesha music on their phone. As with most Eritreans, they’d warmed to the few words proffered in their language; it meant an instant rapport. ‘Come and eat shiro with us’, the invitation offered as we shook hands and they’d left on a No 3 bus to charge their phones.

But where amongst this maize of meandering paths and falling light are they? There are no tents to be seen. First one path, then another. A third disappears into undergrowth, doubles back on itself then penetrates further into a thicket of brambles. And suddenly, in a clearing, four tents, grey, blue, yellow, orange. The orange tent, well stocked with food, is the larder. Clothes hang from the branch above a white folding chair. But there’s no signature wood smoke. No sound but the evening drone of traffic. No one is there; there’ll be no shiro tonight. Feeling an intruder, it’s time to retreat into the drizzle and near dark and once more cross the park honouring the exiled poet Ovid.

For twenty four hours there’s silence. Then comes a message: ‘Thank you my dear God for all you have done for me. Brother alex thanks to your prayers under the creator, we are now safely in your home country of uk’.