Welcome to The Jungle

A few hours into unloading and sorting the donations from our lorry Gayle, one of our volunteers, came and asked if I wanted to help them deliver some logs into the camp. I jumped at the chance, my first chance to get into the jungle and help. Gayle, Louisa and myself along with 'Uncle' Labied set off in convoy along with a transit van full of wood, dates and rice.

Uncle Labied (aka The Sheikh!)

It was as we approached the jungle that I got my first look at the infamous double fences with lethal loops of razor wire on top of them. These fences have been erected by the French government using a £12 million contribution given by the UK government to help prevent people from crossing the Channel to Britain illegally.

The most direct access to the camp had been 'locked down' by the police earlier in the day, which meant a long journey around to the back of the camp via the port. Luckily as we approached the exist was saw that the slip road was open, despite heavy police presence and a police van; the police stood glaring at us as we approached - there is absolutely no love lost between police and refugees or anyone helping them! 

This is the point on the road where the camp really begins to loom into view, sprawling into the horizon - the sheer magnitude of the place makes you question what you are actually seeing. The jungle, for want of a better word is grim. With its sand dunes and scrub land pock-marked with flimsy tents and shacks with the odd, more solid structure such as the church, shops and communal meeting hubs. It kind of looks like a music festival gone horribly, horribly wrong; like a massacre has taken place with its strewn rubbish, ragged tents, open fires, human waste flowing through the streets. It's even more grim in wet weather; drainage is poor and the tents sit in massive lakes of water during heavy downpours, everyone's meager possessions soaked through with dirty rain water mixed with human waste.

 

We dropped down off the dual carriageway, and I realised that is this infamous part of the camp where a few weeks ago all the tents were bulldozed in the most recent raid, without warning very early one morning. The refugees were unable to prepare or retrieve their meager belongings or any legal paperwork. Those who resisted were tear gassed and one account I heard told of a pregnant woman who would not leave her tent and the police threw a tear gas canister in to evict her - it did the job, let's hope that the baby will be unaffected by the trauma.

We drove along the sandy 'roads' and 'streets' of the encampment, dodging people left right and centre as we went.

There were times when the car struggled to get through very wet, muddy areas of the camp, thankfully we were carrying a large load of heavy logs which I'm sure weighed us down enough not to get stuck!!

The transit van we were following navigated us to the first stop; one of the jungle churches - Labied had decided to leave supplies of dates with the churches and mosques in the jungle for those in 'authority' within the churches/mosques to distribute. This is a good strategy to get things out into the heart of the camp, where it's most needed, and a technique used a lot for distribution; central drops of donations which then spread out from there, as fairly as possible.

The three of us girls got out of the car and looked around - we were in a large open space, close to the medical tent with an expanse of water and rubbish. A young lad approached us, about 12 or 13 and it became apparent that he was in the camp alone, he kept turning away from us and wiping his eyes - my heart broke.

Another young lad stopped and spoke to us, his English was broken but he made himself understood perfectly well, his smile would brighten the darkest of days and he had an amazing sense of humour, joking around with us while we surveyed the camp. I think he was from Sudan and he started to explain that he had traveled here alone, about 4 months ago (he was early 20s). He was telling me about the importance of having a smartphone so that he can keep in contact his family via the intermittent WiFi because calling was too expensive. He explained how much SIM cards were and other things that you could buy here.  Never once did he or anyone else in the camp ever ask me for money or for anything at all.

The overwhelming memories for me of the people in the camp was their smiles and friendliness.  It helped that it was a warm dry day, the sunshine clearly helps to raise spirits even in the most dire of situations.

Another few yards we arrived at the next stop and I noticed the church structure that I had seen in several pictures taken by others who had visited the jungle. I took a few shots of my own and, despite wanting to, I decided not to enter the church with my camera as I felt it was intrusive.
 

Next stop was by a busy part of the camp. Lots of great street art decorated the larger structures in the 'street' and the refugees were eager to say hello, laugh and joke with us and ask for their picture to be taken.

 

 

In the Kuwait section of the camp, the street barber was a real character and kept telling us we needed haircuts!

Three refugees stopped and we tried to ask them their story, the had very little English but we managed to glean that they were from Iraq and been in the camp for several months.

At a part of the camp where a lot of Sudanese had their tents and shelters there was a poignant mural of a camel and the slogan 'Dafour is Bleeding'. I climbed up onto a sand dune, zoomed in on the mural and took the picture. To the left of the shelter a man suddenly appeared, shouting at me and getting agitated. He picked up a rock and was intimating that he would throw at me because I was taking photos. I beckoned for him to come and look at the photo on the camera so that he could see that it was only the mural I had captured and no people's faces were visible in the shot. He looked at the photo, sucked his teeth, shook his head as he put the rock down and walked away - event at that point I didn't feel scared, I just wanted them to know that I was there to help them.

A large amount of the people in the jungle don't like to be photographed. They are not a freak show in the background for the selfie-brigade. Permission must always be sought before taking pictures of faces and if you can't get the permission i.e. a photo of a lot of people in a queue, out of respect you must obscure faces before sharing them all over the internet.

From a practical point of view, it's widely believed that photographs can have a detrimental effect on their asylum application; images found of a refugee on the web in a country other than the one they are seeking asylum from will have a huge impact on their application.

Labied took us to the Syrian camp area, they were all so welcoming and friendly there. One particular young guy who was about 25 and had the most amazing blue eyes, chatted to us for a long time explaining that all the people in that area of the camp were from the same area in Syria, Daraa. They had traveled in small groups all the way to Calais. There were mainly young single men, the older men had their wives and children with them.

The young man spoke almost perfect English and he told us that he had been studying English and Law at university in Damascus but it had become too dangerous to continue to study there. It was his first year at university and he was worried that he would not be able to continue his studies until he was very old.

En route we heard that there was a heavily pregnant lady in the area. I couldn't think of anything more horrific in this day and age to be facing labour in a tent in the middle of this unsanitary place! So sad that the little one was being born into such a harsh life with winter just around he corner.

[UPDATE: When we got home we had word that Baby Wassim was born in the camp on the Saturday. Mother and baby were doing well. The French authorities found compassion and have housed the family in a safehouse in Calais]

Women and children - we saw several children, a lot enjoying bikes, during our journey through the camp. Mainly boys to begin with and they were all such characters; cheeky, laughing and eager to have their photos taken!! We saw several woman in the camp but it was predominantly men.

Our last stop was in the Afghan section of the camp, there were quite a few children in this area and it was quite enclosed by bushes. This is the only place in the camp that I had really noticed the human waste in the bushes and a strong, unpleasant smell.  It was quite horrific, considering that the little kids were running around in and out of the bushes playing quite innocent to the fact that there was human excrement all around them.

The guy on the left of this picture Michael* was desperate for me to take their photo - he wanted me to send it to him through Viber. I had a long chat with him about his journey, his English was very good, he said that it had taken him 10 days and was horrendous. There were times when he was so tired, hungry and thirsty that he lay down and felt like he was going to die :(

It was time to return to the warehouse, all the firewood had been distributed and there were just a few boxes of dates left for the kitchens that Labied would distribute himself the next day. Gayle gave out the remaining donations of food that she had in the car and we made our way back to the warehouse in silence, processing all that we had seen.