The Migrant Diaries. Lynne Jones
is asking what happened to the idea of a camp taxi to take someone to hospital at night. It needs a trusted volunteer who knows Calais. Meanwhile, fifteen beds have been arranged in a convalescence facility for men with traumatic injuries, but Bahirun wants to see more space for tired and sick people. The containers at Salaam are only for the women and children. Someone wants the ambulance extraction points explained. A Frenchman suggests that there should be a communication person in each community to spread correct information.
A psychotherapist comes up to me after the meeting. He is planning to pop over once a week from Britain and was wondering how I thought he could help. Perhaps he could do some psychological debriefing?8
– Umm, I am not sure debriefing is what is needed here.
– What do you recommend?
– Hanging out, sitting and listening to people wherever they are, whenever they want. Not forcing people to talk or sitting in a ‘counselling tent’. Being as well-informed as possible about where everything is, including relevant asylum information, the nearest free food, activities. Actually, I think the most useful things I do are drive a car, carry a thermos flask of warm tea at all times, and be able to stand on my head.
I am not joking. Burnt out volunteers don’t have time to come to sessions on self-care, but they do need lifts to get petrol for generators, travel between meetings in warehouse and camp, and then get back to wherever they are sleeping. A warm car is as good a place as any to ventilate about the latest idiotic suggestion made by a new volunteer or the behaviour of the CRS.
These lessons were reinforced this morning. I had driven over to Dunkirk early to meet Lydia at the school. Maddie had walked me in and sat on the bench outside. She was still exhausted, saying she needed a good weep really, so I poured out some hot tea and we had a natter. Apparently, the fight settled down. The problem is that the refugees have a love-hate relationship with the people smugglers, which is now the main route to the UK. A few weeks ago, some Albanians turned up and started trying to muscle in on the Kurdish patch. It was that conflict that led to gun shots. The refugees were saying—give us a break, we fled from all of this.
Then I went to meet Lydia for the planned developmental movement session for children. (Thank you, Veronica Sherborne. The training I had from you in Bristol in developmental movement for children has helped me in so many places.) It’s amazing at providing a way of moving and exercising in small, cramped shelters, and helping children feel and understand their bodies. It’s good for building relationships and good for dealing with aggression. Best of all, it is fun. Two young Swiss volunteers turn up, and we practice rolling each other across the floor, being rocking boats or immovable rocks, making swings and jumps and tunnels with bodies for children to crawl through. Everyone was laughing and relaxed after forty minutes.
When Maddie heard I was driving back for the coordination meeting, she asked for a lift and used the whole journey to ventilate. It turns out, she has been a festival organiser for around ten years, which seems to provide an ideal skillset for working in Northern France.
Calais and Dunkirk, Thursday 18 February
The days run into each other, and it’s hard to remember what I did on which day. The camps are an exercise in not doing the things you thought you were going to do and finding yourself doing something entirely different (but hopefully useful). It might be visiting a child with learning difficulties or one that is being overactive and aggressive. It might be group work with exhausted volunteers. Today, it was group play activities at the caravans the French government have provided as winter accommodation for the most vulnerable women and children. They get food vouchers, but there is no transport and no school, so the children are miserable and bored. One small boy is wailing inconsolably for no apparent reason.
So, we play my favourite games for bored children; ‘Crossing the River’ is great for using up energy. Mark out two lines about twenty feet apart. Line up all the children on one side. Stand in the river looking ferocious and waving your arms like a crocodile, dragon or water snake—whatever is culturally appropriate. Have additional adults play monitor to watch out for falls and scrapes and say ‘go.’ At that point, the children must run across the river without getting caught. Those caught turn into crocodiles and catch more children at the next crossing. It never fails. Children enjoy being crocodiles as much as they do crossing without being caught. I recommend following with quieter games like ‘knots.’ In this game, children must form a circle, put their hands in front of them, close their eyes and walk forwards until each hand has caught another hand. Then they open their eyes, and, keeping hold of the hands, untangle the knot in silence. The magic works here in Dunkirk. Two minutes into the session, the wailing boy is smiling and running.
Afterwards, there’s a discussion group at the Women and Children’s Centre at Grand Synthe. This is a large beautiful yurt-like structure, draped, carpeted and cushioned with a central stove and a tunnel entrance where you can deboot, swing your legs across a bench and enter without bringing mud onto the carpeted floor. Between 1pm and 6pm it’s women and children only. At night, it’s an emergency shelter for new arrivals.
It was built by Dylan, an Irish tree surgeon and carpenter. Prior to this, Dylan was squatting in Dublin, running an anarchist social centre. Incensed by what was happening in Syria, he had planned to go and help the Kurdish opposition in Rojava, but then decided he could be more useful helping the Kurdish community camped out in Dunkirk.
Today, the volunteers want to discuss why everyone gets angry, which naturally leads to talking about loss and stress reactions. Then, we move onto organisational difficulties and coping with burn out. I realise I need to develop a workshop specifically for this context. What a difference weather makes. Today, bright sunlight lights up blossoms and the stuffed children’s toys some people have hung in the trees around their tents. The camp has a gaudy appearance if you ignore the mud, pools and swamps.
The Camp at Grand Synthe Dunkirk, February 2016
I know how lucky I am to have a quiet sanctuary in which to sleep and write. Benoit runs a B&B in the centre of the old part of town, looking over the park. Most importantly, he is friendly to volunteers and is welcoming whenever I return.
The Jungle, Friday 19 February
The French Prefecture has served a formal notice of eviction on the inhabitants of the southern half of the camp. In the evening, refugees and volunteers pack together into the Jungle Books meeting room as Mary summarises the key points from the eviction order:
The refugees are accused of attacking the cars and property of residents nearby, of distracting the police forces from more urgent security needs in the fight against ‘terrorism’ in a state of emergency, and of living in unsafe, unsanitary conditions that lack human dignity.
Another stated reason is the “attacks on migrants by individual members of small radical groups around the ‘La Lande’ camp and the incitement to hatred and violence circulating on internet blogs by extreme left-wing and extreme right-wing groups.” So, living in hellish conditions and being attacked by fascists are not arguments for protection, but for eviction!
The authorities state that the southern half of the camp only houses 800 to 1000 refugees—a number that can be accommodated in the new container camp. Others can go to the spaces they have available in accommodation centres around France.
But Help Refugees have done a census in the last week. The actual figures are 3500, which means there is insufficient provision for all those who need it, in particular for the unaccompanied minors. This is the basis for the legal action taken by the Jungle residents, supported by the Associations, contesting the eviction. They argue that no humane, dignified provision has been made for the majority of people living in the camp.
Fortunately, it seems likely that Ben’s rebuilding programme should be able to rehouse all those affected