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Fireside Tales;  The latest installment from Calais, frontline of the refugee crisis, by Alex Holmes. 

‘Do bees have taste buds?’ Negus, ever pondering, answers his own question, ‘I don’t think so’. Bees and wasps in uncountable numbers swarm around the fireside in the Eritrean camp, a frenetic swirl of perpetual motion drawn to the discarded food. No one appears concerned, or to have been stung. ‘Look at their energy,’ continues Negus. ‘I have none. I am tired. I want to go back to Africa to see my mother. I miss her. I’ve been in Europe for too many years’.  Uncountable bees and wasps; the burden of uncountable lost years.

Most significant numbers are of a lower magnitude. Nahom has been in the camp just one day. He’s youthful, smiling, and passionate about football. ‘I want to play for Chelsea’. ‘Chelsea’ I laughingly groan, ‘there’s only one team, Manchester United.’ ‘Sir Alex Ferguson, great manager, but what is ‘Sir’?’ My explanation of the British honours system triggers further discussion. ‘You know about Field Marshal Montgomery?’ It’s the seasoned Eyob, an excellent English speaker, who’s been one year in Calais. I tell him that as a young school boy I marched in a parade and we all saluted Field Marshal Montgomery.  ‘I love history’, he says. ‘Do you know there were 25 German Field Marshals in World War two?’

The two-legged chair propped up on a tree trunk. The two camp kittens, ‘Soldier’ and ‘Salam’. It’s evening; the low sun casts long shadows across the campsite. Guys are sitting on blankets in the shade playing cards. Emerging from the undergrowth, the kittens summon immediate attention and each is given a tin of tuna. Soldier needs no encouragement; Salam is more wary. Eyob gently loosens the compact tuna with a plastic spoon, and the reluctant kitten begins to eat with relish. His meal over, Soldier playfully snatches at insects, then climbs first onto Maria, then onto Eyob. ‘Yesterday he fell asleep here’; he indicates the crook of his neck. ‘You want a cappuccino?’ A saucepan of milk is gently simmering on the fire. Using a stick, he scratches something into the skin above both his knees. ‘This’ he says pointing to the first of the scratched symbols, ‘is how you write ‘one’ in Ge‘ez, the old Eritrean language.’ He points to the other, ‘and this is ‘two’’. How many sugars do you want in your cappuccino, one or two, or perhaps three?’

Three legged Sheshy. It’s more than half a year since he was run down by a car and had his leg broken. He’s still using a single crutch. There’s a pained edge to his smile these days. Behind where he’s sitting, two paintings of the Eritrean flag hang on the fence that borders the camp; they’re surmounted by a small statue of Mary, mother of Jesus. A rosary hanging from her neck oscillates in the wind. The flag is composed of three triangles. It’s ‘four-legged’ Samer, Samer who fell from a lorry, who explains the flag. He points with one of his crutches at the upper triangle, a green triangle signifying agriculture. The lower blue triangle signifies the sea. The central blood red triangle has a 30-leaved golden olive wreath in it: the 30 years of bloodshed fighting for independence from Ethiopia. Explanation over, Samer’s attention is caught by Channa’s skateboard. Undeterred by his lameness, he mounts the skateboard and using his crutches to propel himself, he disappears down the road.

Negus watches from the fireside. Despite the summer warmth, he fixedly keeps on his hat to hide his receding hairline  ‘I’m getting old’. He’s in a wistful mood, nostalgically remembering Africa. ‘In Europe, everyone is out for themselves, they don’t care about other people. In Africa, we look out for each other. I hope society in Europe will change. I watched a Charlie Chaplin film once and in his day it seems people did care about others’. I ask him if he has any good memories of his uncountable years in Europe. ‘I have met kind people. I will always remember them. Do you know the song ‘Memories’ by Maroon 5? It’s my favourite song. Give me your phone!’ I pass him my phone and, side by side, sitting on the worn and polished tree trunk in the setting sun, we listen intently to his favourite song: ‘Here's to the ones that we got, Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not, 'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories of everything we've been through. Toast to the ones here today, Toast to the ones that we lost on the way…..’

This short reflection was taken from Caritas internationalis and used at a Glasgow Catholic Worker round table discussion entitled 'Going to bed hungry in the UK'.  

Poverty is in some ways a kind of violence. We can say that its strongest expression is hunger. Let’s not forget that some political, economic and even humanitarian actors don’t hesitate to use poverty, and its most violent expression of hunger, as a “resource” for their own advantage. They use it like a business asset, as a means of illegal enrichment, of dominating and subjugating entire populations. In my country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, I remember that in order to subdue the students who were demonstrating against the corruption and dictatorship of his regime, President Mobutu cut off their grants and closed down all the university dining halls.

…We must refuse to accept poverty and hunger as an inevitability and not give in to the temptation that there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve often heard things like: “We’ll always have the poor among us.” These words borrowed from Jesus sound like an appeal to not get involved, but are rather an invitation to refuse the status quo, to fight until no child, woman or elderly person is deprived of sufficient, nutritious quality food. Jesus accepts no justification for letting someone go hungry. We recall his answer to the apostles when they adopted a defeatist attitude before a crowd of people whom the Lord had asked them to feed. He didn’t hesitate to tell them: “You yourselves must give them something to eat.” (Mt 14,13-21). – Father Pierre Cibambo, Caritas Internationalis, Rome
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It’s us the Lord is speaking to today: “You give them something to eat”, and he knows we have the wherewithal to do so! He says to us: You who are my disciples, don’t abandon them to their fate. Do something, you have the wherewithal to do so. Stretch your imagination and be creative. Work ceaselessly and share what you have. Fight selfishness and don’t waste anything. Protest so that the exploitation of the most vulnerable comes to an end. Demand that a stop be put to the monopolisation of land by the rich. Give the poor, women and farmers the know-how and tools they need to produce, process and sell the products of their land, etc. Do the same as God, who is always interested in our daily bread: from the offering of bread in the Temple to the breaking of bread in Emmaus, from the manna of the exodus to the multiplication of loaves and fishes, the Lord has always paid attention to human hunger. May this campaign also help us to rediscover and go deeper into the mystery of the Eucharist. The Lord left us this memorial – which he wanted to remain vitally present among us through the symbols of bread and wine – for a reason. Since then, we cannot break Eucharistic bread or become communities that celebrate the Eucharist, the sacrament of communion and alliance, without doing our utmost to give back dignity to our brothers and sisters deprived of sufficient, good-quality food. Indeed, the Eucharist is the expression par excellence of God’s compassionate, merciful and redeeming love. –Cardinal Oscar Andrès Cardinal Maradiaga, President of Caritas Internationalis

We are pleased to share this latest update from Calais where Alex Holmes volunteers with destitute asylum seekers. Blog 

Fireside, Calais. The Eritrean Stadium camp. There’s a strong north wind, and channelled by the high security wall, it drives the smoke horizontally southwards. A game of draughts is underway, an intense and silent focus. Outwitting the opponent. ‘You want tea or coffee’ asks the ever-smiling Sheshy placing the kettle on the grid above the flames. The black skin of his hand is marked by a vivid rose-pink scar from a burn last year. I remember his bandaged hand. Seeing the scar tissue has caught my attention, his grin broadens, ‘I like this, it’s a good memory…I don’t like things to be easy, I prefer when there are problems’. He strategically lays more wood on the fire. ‘Tomorrow they will stop bringing you wood because it’s May’ I tell him. ‘Maybe!’ comes the instant comic retort from Negus, sharp-witted, the convincing yarn-spinner. ‘Watch this!’ Negus leaves the fireside, grabs the bike leaning against the security wall, and mounting it backwards like a circus performer, he sets off with a grin on his face. Completing a wide circle, he dismounts, does a little bow, drops the bike and returns to the fireside. ‘It’s like your government; we want to face forwards, they make us look backwards, push us back to Africa, to Rwanda.’ Since the UK government’s April announcement*, the word ‘Rwanda’ has been a staccato fire cracker in the flow of Tigrinya, repeated again and again and again. It needs no translation. In the pauses, in the silence, it’s the ticking of a time bomb. And then questions, questions: Is it safe to go to UK? What is the news about Rwanda? Is it true or not true? ‘If they send me to Rwanda’, declares Sheshy, ‘I will go back to Eritrea and live like we do here in Calais, hiding, in secret’. For Yoel, it is darker: ‘If they send me to Rwanda, I will kill myself.’

Another bike is propped against the security wall. A bulging rucksack is attached to the cargo-rack, plastic bags hang from the handle bars. The bike is Moustapha’s. Sitting fireside, downwind, his eyes water from the smoke, yet despite repeated invitations to move his seat, he resolutely stays put. A small white globule has formed in the tear duct of each eye. He’s an Arabic speaker from somewhere in the Middle East but apart from his name, nothing more is known. Negus tells me he has given them 40 euros. It is Ramadan and zakat is required of Muslims, the charitable giving of money to those who are less well-off. Some of the guys at the fireside speak Arabic and it’s explained to Moustapha that the camp is only for Eritreans. Offering to show him another Calais refugee camp where he can sleep, Osman sets off with Moustapha. Minutes later, they’re back. Moustapha looking bemused, returns to his fireside seat in the full flow of the wind-driven smoke. Once more his eyes begin to run.

There’s a sudden blast of traditional Eritrean music, the legendary Yemane Barya. Sheshy, now the DJ, has linked his phone to his speaker. ‘You like this? Listening to music is the only way I can sleep at night’. Negus chips in, ‘I listen to Mozart to get to sleep. Eine kleine nachtmusik is the best. I like Beethoven too.’ He mouths the famous opening motif of Beethoven’s 5th symphony, da-da-da-dumm, da-da-da-dumm.  ‘During the Second World War it was your symbol for victory, V for victory. Da-da-da-dumm. Never give up!’ And as if to illustrate this, he leaves the fireside, picks up the bike and once more mounts it. This time he faces forward and spirals out in ever widening circles. He raises one hand and makes the V for victory sign. ‘Da-da-da-dumm, da-da-da-dumm. We never give up!’

*14 April 2022; UK Home Secretary Priti Patel announced a plan to relocate to Rwanda ‘those arriving illegally into the UK’ https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-speech-on-uk-and-rwanda-migration-and-economic-development-partnership