My day-to-day-life since march 2022 is rice, curry, salad. As a team of 10 – 20 volunteers we run a charity kitchen in Northern France. Every day we hand out hundreds of meals, in the summer even thousands. The people that access our hot food distributions are from Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and pretty much any other country that people flee from or that makes it difficult to live in.
Other organisations distribute food packs, non-food-items such as tents or sleeping bags, hold phone-charging-session where they also give out information about claiming asylum, hold playing and learning sessions for kids, provide first aid and medical care, help people in emergency situations, care specifically for women & children, document the ongoing evictions of the camps and human rights violations or organize celebratory and cultural events.
Why do these organisations exist? Leaving the political answer for later, they exist because about 2000 people on the move live in Calais and Dunkerque. They live without housing, adequate health care and only limited possibilites of being a part of the normal Calaisian community. So the simple answer of why people started these organisations in 2015 and keep starting new organisations is because there is the need for them.
I personally came here because I feel like it’s a worthwhile thing to do. That’s the stoic answer, and one that leaves out the political aspects as well as the question of responsibility for this situation. But I don’t want to leave that part unsaid, so here it goes.
A bit ago, another volunteer told me that they were fueled by anger. I don’t feel anger, I thought. What was fueling me, was seeing how that one garantueed meal 5 days a week is making a difference (we would love to be open 7 days a week again, so come on over to volunteer if you wanna make that possible). But I lost my stoicism. Now I feel it as well.
I am pissed at the french state for deliberately creating this hostile living environment with the hordes of riot police funded by the British government, with the evictions of the camps every 1 – 2 days, with police violence, with theft of personal belongings like sleeping bags or tents, with making the charities work harder, for example by restricting more and more where we are able to distribute food and water.
I feel resentful towards the riot police officers who regularly come to our food distributions. „What you are doing, is illegal. You need to leave.“ It is not illegal, and most times after some discussion they do realize that. But what the fuck is motivating these people to work as a riot police officer, creating this hostile environment, other than pure racism and lack of empathy?
I am angry at the German state. I meet the people my state has failed on food distributions, recognizing them from a mumbled “Danke”. We can find a little home away from home in a short German conversation. But while my german language abilities came with a myriad of privileges, one of them a passport that makes me live in a world where borders are oh so barely visible, their language abilities more often than not come with a failed attempt to build a new life. Asylum claim denied, no work permit. So they leave Germany to try in another country. If they choose the UK, that comes with a 0-star-stay in the hellhole of a vacuum that is Calais.
And I feel a certain bitterness when hearing that Ukrainian refugees in Calais stay at hostels and hotels, being provided 3 meals a day, and receive visa support from British officials. Why can we not show this hospitality towards everyone, no matter where they are from?
To conclude, I am probably the most angry at the fortress of Europe. With a smugness they let people die and suffer at their borders. An enormous country club of people who we know from history is determined to not let any compassion stop them from increasing and protecting their wealth. But that does not make it less devastating. And even though my experiences with Europe’s borders has mainly been Calais – there are many other places like Calais along the European borders. Deadly borders that show the systemic racism and lack of humanity in our societies, causing charities to spring up to do services like they do here.
I put my anger and frustrations into making nice food and giving it away. While being painfully aware that that is far from everything that people need. What they need, is housing, healthcare, opportunities for work & education, a sense of home and community. But that’s not within my abilities, so I make rice, curry, salad. Feel free to join me.