Voices from the 'Jungle'

Stories from the Calais Refugee Camp

Calais Writers

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786800824
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Emigración e inmigración

Often called the 'Jungle', the refugee camp near Calais in Northern France epitomises for many the suffering, uncertainty and violence which characterises the situation of refugees in Europe today. But the media soundbites we hear ignore the voices of the people who lived there - people who have travelled to Europe from conflict-torn countries such as Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan and Eritrea: people with astounding stories, who are looking for peace and a better future. Voices from the 'Jungle' is a collection of these stories. Through its pages, the refugees speak to us in powerful, vivid language. They reveal their childhood dreams and struggles for education; the wars and persecution that drove them from their homes; their terror and strength during their extraordinary journeys. They expose the reality of living in the camp; tell of their lives after the 'Jungle' and their hopes for the future. Through their stories, the refugees paint a picture of a different kind of 'Jungle': one with a powerful sense of community despite evictions and attacks, and of a solidarity which crosses national and religious boundaries. Illustrated with photographs and drawings by the writers, and interspersed with poems, this book must be read by everyone seeking to understand the human consequences of this world crisis.

CHAPTER 1

Home

Mani (from Iran):
Just this sky is with me
From my town, land, country.
Anywhere I am,
this sky is with me.

Dreams and suspended futures

Everyone in the ‘Jungle’ has left behind a life, loved ones and a home. Some prefer not to write about it, as remembering what they left is too painful. For those who do, memories of childhood and home are coloured by the journey that has led them here, and their everyday existence in the ‘Jungle’. Many of the authors wanted to give a detailed and full record of where they came from and why they were forced to leave behind everything that was dear to them. On one hand, these stories help us understand why people from different countries and regions have all arrived in the ‘Jungle’ at the same time; on the other, they show us what is shared between us all: the dreams we had as children.

Babak (from Iran):

Amongst my childhood memories, I run, with my utmost energy.

Amongst all my colourful days, I stop on the road of faith, and as in? My childhood, I wait for my friends, so we can play.

How sweet was childhood, when all the worry was whether we would find a playmate or not!

When all our trouble was not to go home with dirty clothes!

When all our worry was for the rain not to interfere with our games!

I grew old too quickly. My thoughts grew too wide. It wasn’t just me who grew up. It was me as well as others around me who grew old with me. My parents grew older and older. My brother is a man now. My problems also grew bigger. My worries too, and so did my troubles.

I now think instead of playing. Think about how to live. How to be happy.

How to pave the way towards happiness? The more I search for it, the further it goes away. Where is happiness indeed? In my country? In other continents? In another world? I journeyed for miles and I couldn’t find it, and I lost it over and over every day.

I realised that happiness is not in a place! Happiness is not what I can find and achieve! Happiness is my thoughts! I have to create it.

I realised life is a canvas and I am the artist. I can be the artist of my own life. I am the one who builds his life, and happiness is the state of soul.

It is likely that I could well be in the best-ever conditions of life and still feel unhappy, and that I could have the worst conditions and still be happy.

Africa (from Sudan):

When I was a young boy, I had my own dreams, like crazy dreams: I wanted to be like Bruce Lee. When I grew up, as a teenager, I was not following girls and things like that, I just wanted to be at martial arts practice, where I could practice karate or kung fu. I had this special idea of making my own martial art. But I couldn’t do this, because already, when I was 20 or 21 I had an operation on my stomach that made me stop doing any self-defence or any sport. After that had become my new way of life, I started to think about how I could make myself a useful person; how I could be responsible; how I could make my life.

Nothing endures but change.

After this operation, I really wanted to graduate from the military academy as an officer, but the operation also stopped this. They will not accept you if you have had any operation on your body. After that I went to university. I would have preferred to read law, but my qualifications did not allow me to enter into the law course. Because of that I chose something near to law, that is, political science.

Eritrea (from Eritrea):

Five years after I was born, Eritrea got its independence. I remember I was eager to go to school – my family also, especially my father. He was excited about me going to school because he was a shepherd, he was not educated, and that is why he wished for me to be educated. I remember one day where I went to register for primary school in my hometown. The director did not give me the permission to start, because I looked a bit childish, a little too small – especially in height, I was too short. He told me, ‘You have to eat one ton.’ He said that to express his idea that I should grow bigger. My father got angry because he was eager for me to get registered. I was clever, especially when it comes to reading and calculating in mathematics – subtracting and adding numbers. I was good at that time. My father went to the director and said to him, ‘You can ask him anything that you want from the primary school.’ The director was surprised: ‘What are you saying?’ My father said, ‘My son is clever, you have to register him. You can compare him with others, you can ask him anything.’ The director did what my father told him. He asked me many things, for example, how to read the alphabet, how to add numbers, how to subtract numbers, how to multiply numbers. I answered the correct things and the director registered me immediately. My dad had taught me those things. Although he was a shepherd, looking after animals, he had been learning many things from his uncle. My father’s mother had died and his father had gone to discover Ethiopia so my father was living with his grandparents and that is why he was made to be a shepherd of their animals, which he was sad about. He did not want the things that had happened to him to happen for me.

I was the smallest person in that school. I was six years old. I remember I stood out from my class and everyone was congratulating me. From that time onwards, I was encouraged, especially by my father, he was saying, ‘You will be a professor’, ‘You will be a doctor’, ‘You will be the bright future of this country.’ His legacy is strong. He has encouraged me and that was why I became clever. My brothers became clever because they were looking at me.

In 2001, I was a Grade 9 high school student and I was one of the students who went to vocational school. Vocational school in Eritrea is like a college. I stayed for about two weeks but the promises they told us were so different with the ground we faced. Before we joined, they told us that we would be able to participate in the Eritrean Secondary Education Certificate Exam (ESECE) in all subjects after learning for two years. But the director of the vocational school affirmed that there would not be a matriculation exam. It was just a diploma programme. Most of the students we met there were top class ones, and we all decided to return back to our former high schools. After a petition, we did manage to do this, and our former high school director was very happy to accept us.

Then I started a relation with a lady in that school. That lady was the most beautiful student in our high school. Everyone liked her; she was famous for her beauty. Some of the students were gossiping about me: ‘How is this boy matched with her?’ and some of them were considering me as a lucky person. But some of them were angry and they thought they could make me fail in my educational targets. My relatives told my father about this, and my father had a connection with the teachers and tried to know the truth. But I was increasing my knowledge and my value, and I stood second in all the classes, and everyone was surprised.

One day my father asked me about my relations with the lady and I affirmed that ‘We are friends and we like each other.’ He was really surprised by my answer and hugged me. In Eritrea, it is not usual to have a friend at that age. We were friends for two years and then we went to the military training centre. Then we didn’t see each other for about four months, because in military training, men and women are placed in different camps. After finishing military training, we started our twelfth-grade courses. I met my friend and we hugged each other. Later, I heard a soldier had abused her and took her virginity. I was changed, like a crazy person, and was sad about her. In the military camp, many girls are still facing the same problem. Later I joined the university, but she failed to get in. Then we stopped our friendship; we were simply continuing as a sister and a brother. From that time till I finished my degree, I never had a girlfriend.

Refugees’ Voice’s story is different from all the other authors’. He came to the UK young and only left this much-desired destination, without adequate travel documents, just as others were arriving from across the sea. As more people live many years in the UK with unresolved status and decide to leave, or are deported, and later try to make their way back, this kind of story is becoming more common. In addition, many other people in Calais had moved there from other European countries such as Hungary and Italy, because their asylum claims there were, like that of Refugees’ Voice, not going well. Refugees’ Voice’s story starts in the UK, when he was a teenager:

Refugees’ Voice (from Afghanistan):

When I came to this country, the UK, it was in the year 2000. I came to England when I was 17. That was 16 years ago. I was living in the UK until September 2015 and then I got so fed up and so depressed and so I went to France and then to Italy. I did try to go to university and I even went to college in Bedfordshire. To be honest, back home, I was one of the best students. When I came, I managed to go to college. I started a course which is a fast-track course to get to university. I did it in science but when I was a kid I always wanted to be a doctor, one of the most famous doctors in the entire world. But maybe my luck was not enough for me, maybe I did not work enough. I came to the UK at the age of seventeen and went into year eleven and I might have gone to the best universities in the entire world but at the same time my luck did not work that way. These are some of the things that I had to face.

Teza, by contrast, gave a highly detailed account of his early childhood in his home country, playing games and at home with his family:

Teza (from Iran):

What I remember from when I was very young are some games with my brothers and sisters. My family is big. I have two brothers older than me. One sister and two brothers are younger. I remember playing with a ball, at the park, at home. Sometimes we broke the window. And we also played often in the kitchen all together. They were all my best friends. We didn’t fight. I only went outside sometimes, I liked my home. My mum cooked meat with rice – many people in Iran like this food – and kebabs. These were the best for me. Sometimes she made them at home and sometimes we’d go in the park, and she’d make them there.

I remember the first time I went to school – but only a little. I don’t remember if I was scared or excited. I do remember being at school, playing and reading. I read in the class; I was good at reading; I got good marks.

I didn’t have best friends at school; my brothers and sisters and my cousins were my best friends. My two cousins lived near; both were neighbours to me. They were going with me, from both sides, to school.

For holidays, we usually went to my grandmother’s and grandfather’s home – they lived in another city. My father had a very small car, and we all squashed in. My grandmother and grandfather were so pleased when we got there; they gave us presents and nice food. But they died; they are all dead now.

When I was young, I wanted to go in the police. Once a teacher asked and I said, ‘Oh, I like the police. I want to be in the police.’ I was maybe 6, 7, or 8. When I got older, I wanted to be an engineer, an electrical engineer; I really love electrical stuff, and I like maths.

But last year, something happened, and we had to leave Iran quickly. We didn’t even have time to say goodbye. I don’t want to write about it.

For many authors, like Teza, there are certain aspects of their past, the lives they left behind and reasons they were forced to leave, that they do not wish to talk about. These memories are too painful at this time, where everything is suspended and the future is unsure. What happened? Why are you here? These are the questions people in Calais ‘Jungle’ are forced to answer over and over again at each border crossing, to each police officer and state official, and to curious journalists. What is the right answer, the answer each one of these interrogators wishes to hear about the past, and why they came?

Mothers

Mothers, for many young men who arrived in Calais, are the real heroes of their childhood. Mothers have also often been the ones to push their children to leave, to look for a better life and safety. Sons feel they have let down their mothers, as they weren’t able to protect them. They lied to their mothers about being in the ‘Jungle’, as they didn’t want their mothers to worry. Young men miss their mothers, feel guilty for abandoning them and, at times, even blame their mothers for sending them away.

Habibi (from Afghanistan):

My mother called me, and I told her that my father was fine and that I would be coming home. I was hiding what had happened because my mother has high blood pressure and diabetes; she was sick too, and there were my younger brothers to think of as well. So I handled the situation. I thought to myself, ‘It’s okay, you can deal with this because you are a senior: If you will cry, your brothers will cry.’ I was thinking on and on of how I would tell my mum about my father’s death. I took the body of my father home to Pakistan. I knocked the door at our house and my mother opened the door. She asked me where my father was. I said to her, that he was fine but still at the hospital. ‘Tomorrow they will discharge him and I will bring him home’, I said to her. She saw the tears in my eyes and asked, ‘What happened?’

Shikeb (from Afghanistan):

I went to my mum’s house; the time was two o’clock in the night; I kicked the door. My mum was saying, ‘Who is that?’ I said, ‘Mama, it’s Shikeb.’ She cried, ‘What’s happened?’ I said, ‘I’ve come, mum, I so miss you.’ And she told me, ‘Okay my son, you must not come here. You must go to another country.’ ‘Mum, I will not go, because I am happy with you.’ My big brother was addicted to heroin. My sister was married. My mum was alone. ‘I am not going away’, I said. My mother told me, ‘You go!’

Everything was okay; I had everything in Afghanistan. But I said to my mum, ‘Okay mum, I will go to another country, I am not coming back to Afghanistan, never. I will make my life somewhere else.’ Sometimes my mum calls me: ‘Shikeb, how are you?’ ‘Mum, okay! I have everything, even a car; I am going to university.’ But I am living in the ‘Jungle’.

Ali Bajdar (from Iraq):

When I think about the past and my mother, I feel like crying. I miss her a lot. I want to come to England, I want to study and have a life there, but if I find out where my mother is, I will go back to be with her. That is the most important thing for me. I miss her so much. She is old and cannot work so she needs my help. I hope she is safe somewhere. Maybe she is in a camp. If I knew where she was, I would go back. I am also sick and cannot work but we would figure something out. We used to take care of each other. It wouldn’t matter. I don’t want her to live alone. My father and my brother are also back there, but they have each other. My s...