My monthly two-day visit with Art Refuge to Calais has been one with endless rain. The evening before travelling to Calais I already had caught a bit of a cold. So, I decided not to do any outside work, hence not visiting the camps. It has been raining almost non-stop in Calais for more than three weeks. And with the wind here rain also goes horizontally. 

At the Caritas Day Centre I am happy to meet Orthodox deacon Anteneh once again. He is an Eritrean refugee living in the ‘BMX’ camp. He says it’s all water around the camp; tents have to be put on wooden pallets.  

“Diakon” as I call him, suffers from pains in his legs and his back. He has been in the camp for more than a year and has to move around on crutches. He is a nice and gentle young man but being a refugee and living in a camp has left him marked. Tomorrow he is going to another city, Lille, to claim asylum in France. The Day Centre provides him with train tickets and Alex a volunteer is getting him at 7am to the train station.  

At the Day Centre this Wednesday 835 refugees came; refugees mainly from Syria, Sudan, South-Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Afghanistan. When you walk through that very large crowd of young men, you some how trust that it all will go fine. The day centre is open from 1:30pm till 5pm, that is four hours of being in a warmer place, out of the rain cherishing a cup of coffee or tea, charging your mobile phone, getting some information or having a nap. On dry days people would be hand washing their clothes in basins and hanging them up to dry, but nothing is drying in this weather. Today people are really hungry, and you can see it and it is the first time I see such a hungry crowd in France.  

At our community table (the Art Refuge project) we had many young men, more than fifty came. Diakon Anteneh build a large and colourful tower. Some of the Sudanese guys tried out our old mechanical typewriter, while others played some word games. A young Sudanese boy build a large house with little ceramic bricks, higher and higher until it collapsed. The rumble in a way was a familiar site, a bit like the state of our world today. I used the few words of Arabic I knew to try to start a conversation with the young man, but Mustafa focused strongly on the little bricks.   

Some of the volunteers that help at the Day Centre have no idea what our work at the community table is about. We are not serving coffee or tea, not giving any information out, not repairing clothes like the women in the clothes repair workshop do, we are not playing with the children like the people of Project Play. The community table just wants to be a place where refugees can come and sit and have the space to be themselves, maybe tell us something with a little piece of art, talk or just sit with us. It is a place of not having to do anything. Like in the work of pastoral presence it is creating space for people to just be. But the art or creativity materials we use are carefully chosen to the use at the table in that context. Basically the community table is a space where people lose tension. 

In the next building with separate entrance, women and children refugees are welcomed. We had brought from London some bags of pampers and hygiene stuff for women, which was most welcome. ‘Could I bring any new women’s underwear next time I come?’ was the question. 

It’s past 5pm already, people are being asked to leave, back into the rain. Nobody is in a haste to go back out and the volunteers are neither in a haste to push people out. Some refugees have to stay behind; either they still have to get a piece of paper or some information. Four young teenage Sudanese boys hang around two of them are shoeless. Did I see that right? Yes, they are not wearing any shoes, bare foot in this weather. They are waiting for a pair of shoes a volunteer is collecting for them.  

There are also a few families in the back area with children. They are waiting for emergency accommodation, which will not be offered. The families and some of the volunteers decide to go and stand in front of the local governmental building. One of the families can’t join in this little ad hoc protest as the young child has a heart disease. 

On my way back I notice that my feet are wet even not having been in the camps. People squat under bridges, between rocks and in foliage. If they have strong plastic tarpaulin they stay pretty dry. Every other day the police comes and removes the little camps, confiscating what is left behind. It has almost become like a ritual and the refugees know how it works. The rain just makes what is already inhuman more cynical. Clearing up your tent, wooden pallets included, moving it on to another corner of the field to then come back and rebuild.  

 There is lots of hardship and suffering here, but the resilience these people show is enormous, the hope they carry with them to build a better and beautiful life somewhere else keeps them going. 

It is only the beginning of winter and already the charities in Calais and Dunkirk are having a real hard time delivering on the basic and urgent needs of refugees, which leads to tension amongst refugees and refugees towards volunteers.  

The Day Centre has need for more volunteers, a dozen volunteers served these 835 visitors on Wednesday. 

With thanks to Saint Saviour’s Priory in London, we could bring bags and boxes of soap, shampoo, toothpaste & brushes, raisers, socks, hats, towels, women’s hygiene stuff and coffee and tea. 

Also we collected around €500 in donations for the support of refugees coming to the Day Centre (from a few people in Belgium and the UK). 

Bro Johannes Maertens

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