Off-Path: A Dispatch from Catholic Worker Calais

Catholic Worker Calais are a Passionist Partner organisation, supported by St Patrick’s Province for the work that they do with the highly marginalised migrant community in Calais. Here, frequent collaborator Alex Holmes shares snapshots of Calais life.

The Track.

A puddled tarmacked channel between wall and wire, way-lit by late autumn flowers. Golden tansy and toadflax, star-bright campion and yarrow. Behind the wall, the near continuous drone of passing trucks; beyond the wire, ‘secteur interdiction d’accès’ – a forbidden zone. Pushing through the wire are blood red hips and crimson haws and night-black sloes. A white Police Nationale van passes slowly by carefully navigating the potholes. Inside, two gendarmes, two sets of smileless searching eyes.

The Junction.

Ahead, at the junction of track and path there are new boulder piles. A Calais trope, familiar, unsurprising, brutalist. A small smiling figure approaches, offering a hand to shake. It’s nine year old Fikru, until now determinedly uncommunicative. Beside the boulders, a makeshift washstand. The ‘shower place’. Fikru’s Mum Rufta is washing Yosias her four year old son. Wet childrens’ clothes are draped over the wire fence. On one of the boulders, a scrawl of barely legible black letters reads: Refugees welcome.

The Path.

A perpendicular cut-off from the track, foot-beaten bare earth. It wanders through waist high wild. Here, once, a corridor of thick bushes that sheltered many small tents. Two years gone but now the dogwood and elder regenerate vigorously. A cock pheasant bursts from the undergrowth terrifying a black and white cat on the prowl for food.

Off – Path.

The path ends, the ‘Jungle’, a small Eritrean encampment adjacent to the fenced-off ‘forbidden zone’, begins. Today the police have been. They come with clockwork regularity every second day. All bar those with children must pack up and temporarily vacate the site.

With no explanation given, two young men have been taken into detention. Bedding and clothes festoon the fence. The sky darkens as tents are being re-pitched and then comes the rain-burst. Overhead the electric wires fizz. Raindrops pellet against Kabel’s small tent, making conversation inside impossible. We sit waiting. “Good for the farmers but not for us,” he says wryly. Suddenly his phone lights up, and there with us is his little smiling granddaughter. His screensaver. “I have never seen her, but, please God, one day I will.”

Off – Path.

Fikru and his friend Alula are playing football with a broken speaker. A change of mood and they pick up rocks and try to smash it. Rufta orders an end to their aggression and they begrudgingly consent. Fireside, Noad pushes a toy dog up and down a plank of wood. As the dog moves it emits a mechanical yap. “I love dogs,” he says.

He speaks of his incessant nightmares and the fear he has of going to sleep. Milen joins the fireside circle. Emblazoned on his hoodie an image of forest and mountains and the caption ‘OFF-PATH. Beyond the Ridge, Planet Magnificent‘. He speaks of his love of trees and describes the Eritrean tropical rainforest of Filfil where every year, he explains, there are two rainy seasons. Each morning he rises at 6.30 and runs five kilometres. “But today I walked for thirty minutes, slowly, under the trees. Trees are so beautiful.”

Off – Path.

A day of squalls and rainbows is ending quietly. A ladybird has landed on Fikru’s forearm. He watches it slowly working its way towards his wrist. Alula looks on in wonderment. Yosias is chasing soap bubbles blown by his Mum. They drift with the light breeze and, to Yosias’ delight, pop suddenly.

“Look at the sun!” It’s Meley, newly arrived. Along the horizon in the western sky, a gash of brilliant flame. “It’s beautiful,” says Meley. “I always give thanks for God’s beauty.” The dusk light dims. A thin moon appears in the east, and above the camp, the first stars.

Another voice. This time, Elilta. “Always aim for the moon,” she says, her English near perfect, her voice strong, resolute, “and if you miss,” she pauses, “if you miss, you’ll reach a star.”