‘How are the mice, Yoel?’
‘Mice are busy’.
‘What will you give them for dinner?’
‘I give them whisky then they dance.’
It had begun a few days before. ‘I moved out of the army camp to a house, but it is a horrifying house. It stinks very bad. I vomited 3 times. I stayed in army camp 7 months but camp is better than here.’
Yoel was moved from Home Office accommodation in a former British army barracks. He was dropped at the door of a house and given a key. Just a key. No money, no food. It was a Friday.
Monday came. ‘Today I got some money. I was cleaning all the day. I am tired. I think this house has not been cleaned for 10 years. If the manager sees he will say thank you. Problem is a lot of mouse in the kichin.’
Across the Channel in Calais, it’s rats. They run amok in the refugee encampments, playing brazen games of chase, gnawing holes in the guys’ tents, and eating into their food supplies. They also swim. A group of Eritreans watch aghast as a rat doggy-paddles across the putrescent drain that runs beside their camp. ‘This is amazing’, says Abel, ‘Eritrean rats can’t swim. Perhaps we tie many rats together and they carry us across the sea to UK.’
CRS, the camp cat, is no ratter. Named after the French riot police, Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, CRS the cat bears none of the riot police’s aggressive tendencies. She walks delicately around the puddles and avoids the mud. Her favoured night time abode is Jamal’s tent.
Jamal is from Eritrea. Having escaped a country which has been described as the ‘North Korea of Africa’, he dreams of reaching the UK. ‘I strongly believe that the UK is the country of democracy and freedom. I know it's not a paradise. I think you should be grateful for the safety & freedom you have today in your own country. I swear to God if I have had all this stuff in my country I would never leave my beautiful homeland but unfortunately I was forced. I had no other option but flee.’ After a year in Calais, ‘my mind is restless. I'm frustrated. Tired. Fed up. I see people making it to UK very easily while I'm stuck here. I guess some people are luckier than others, but I know God is not going to forsake me.’
This same week, two of his fellow Eritrean exiles in Calais had successfully reached the UK. Fikru, who had penned the words ‘Never Give Up’ onto his tent. And Saare, who two days prior to his crossing of the Channel, had sent a photo of a bird of prey pinning a snake to the ground with its talons. ‘I thought this would describe life. There are challenges every time, but we manage them like the bird is doing’. And like Yoel is doing. ‘I disgust with mouse’. Accompanying the message an emoji, an arm with a bulging flexed bicep. Yoel is on the attack; beware, drunken dancing mice.
