Calais, France, November 2024
We are once again pleased to share reflections from Alex Holmes, longterm volunteer in Calais, recently returned from another month supporting people in Maria Skobtsova House and BMX camp. All names have been changed.
“‘THIS PEOPLE IS LOVE’
Calais. Facing the Hôtel de Ville, a new installation. A scrabble-string of words. Solidarités-Joyeux Amitiés-Amour Partagé-Jouet. Calais is celebrating ‘Solidarity’, a Calais ‘Solidarity’ fleshed out as ‘Joyful Friendships’, ‘Love Shared’, ‘Play’. Five kilometres away in BMX ‘jungle’, the Eritrean and Ethiopian camp, official notices have just appeared. A banishment order. Crosshatched in red, a map indicates a forbidden zone of several hectares. The camp will be destroyed and fenced off; there will be no return for those who have been living there.
Sunday evening, BMX ‘jungle’. A game of football is underway, the pitch tarmac, the goals marked by rocks, the backdrop a golden sunset. Two little girls run around in welly boots. The pink bike they have been sharing has been abandoned and they are splashing in the puddles. They each sport identical bandages on a leg and an arm. It was from falling off the bike they say. Fireside, Mewael’s ankle is bandaged. The boat he was on when trying to cross the Channel, sank, his skin burned by the toxic mix of gasoline and seawater. Fuel burns. Johni, beside him, was on the same boat. ‘Everyone panicked. I swam away from the boat and floated on my back. It was night time, the ferries passed us in the dark but no one saw or heard us. I thought I would die’.
‘No shaking hands, you must do fist to fist or put hand to heart. There is new Covid, Mpox’. Tadesse. His name means ‘Renew’. He’s ‘Mr Traditional Medicine’. A large group are gathered around another fire. Amongst them, Amanuel who is coughing loudly. ‘If I was at home’, says Tadesse, ‘I would know what leaves to pick to make him better, but here I don’t know. Anyway, love is the best medicine’.
The conversation moves on. First to music. Meron speaks of his love of opera, of Mozart, Puccini and Verdi. Then to violence. The violence of the Calais police, the experience of being pepper-sprayed. Gebre reflects on the violence in his home country. ‘What is the solution to this? He already has the answer. ‘Better education, better administration. But ultimately, love is the only solution’.
It’s Sunday. Tradition dictates the celebratory drinking of coffee. A low blue table is set, seventeen candles around a tray of paper cups. Amana lifts the saucepan of bubbling coffee from the fire, transfers the coffee to a jebena, a traditional Eritrean or Ethiopian coffee pot, and fills the cups. She passes them around. The coffee is very sweet and very strong. Despite the worry of the imminent demolition, there are stories to tell; there are smiles, there’s laughter. Feven is back, her arms now bandage-free, but not her legs. Ten days ago she was in BMX ‘jungle’, blistered around her ankles, red raw flesh on her thighs and arms. Fuel burns from when the boat she was on sank in the Channel. An ambulance was called and she was hospitalised first in Calais and then in the special burns unit in Lille. But now she is amongst her community. She speaks little English, but her contentment is palpable. A shy smile spreads across her face. She looks around her and then expresses what’s in her heart. ‘This people,’ she says, ‘this people is love’.
The camp was destroyed the following morning.”
Text and photos by Alex Holmes, 11.11.24
Comments