‘It was impossible to stay clean’: What it’s really like inside the Calais Jungle

Whilst you were sitting in the library stressing about your essay all weekend, a group of Aber students went to Calais and Dunkirk refugee camp to help out those in need. What they encountered was beyond shocking.

Four months ago, the Aber2Calais student initiative collected tents, clothes, and toiletry to send over to Calais. However, the inspiring group of students decided that donations were not enough, and drove the goods down themselves, adding another three days of voluntary work in camps in Calais and Dunkirk.

We spoke to third years Billy, Paddy, Freddie, Abi and their friend Johnny about their experience of working in a refugee camp where they helped translate the doctors, digged trenches for drainage and worked at the warehouse for one weekend.

The loos are dangerously close to the tents in which people live

Billy told the Tab: “We went down to Calais Wednesday 24th with a car full of supplies, tents, clothes. I drove my car down with two other people. We got down there, unloaded our stuff to the warehouse, and the next day I went off to Calais ‘Jungle’ to help translate the Spanish doctor there. The day after that we went to Dunkirk which was 20 times worse.”

When arriving at the camp in Dunkirk, the volunteers were greeted with nothing but kindness. Freddie said: “The humanity inside the camp – I think Johnny put it well in one of his posts – he said there is more humanity inside that terrible place than there was outside of it.”

“Everybody was just really friendly. Nobody posed any threat to each other or to us in any way. The men were just acting as if we were anyone else. And the women and children just wanted to talk to us. And the children in particular just wanted to play really. They wanted to be cheeky and play, like kids at that age do,” adds Billy.

Can you imagine living here for months?

However, the devastating experiences of the refugees overshadowed the friendly atmosphere, combined with living conditions in Dunkirk which exceeded everything the volunteers had seen in Calais. Billy remembers: “Everyone that we met were Kurdish from northern Iraq and Syria. So they all had stories to tell from Daesh and ISIS and Assad and all this and that.

“But the mud in there was in about 60 per cent of the places above your ankle I would say. It was a reminiscing of nomandsland in World War One kind of thing. Water was going into the tents everywhere. Everyone, the kids, were filthy. The kids had nowhere to get dry. Everyone would stay inside, they would miss getting food because there was no way of getting dry anyway.”

When asked about the hygiene conditions on the site, Freddie just says: “Shocking.”

Paddy explains:  “After everyone’s had a wash, walking through that mud you’d just get dirty again.” Nowhere to escape the mud.

Abi remembers the daily struggle to stay clean. She said: “It was impossible to actually stay clean. If you wanted to stay clean you would have to change clothes every day. Because even if you wash your clothes you have got a tent and that’s it: You can’t dry your clothes, because there’s nowhere to hang them up. So people go to the distribution centre every day to get new clothes, because there is no way of staying clean.”

The volunteers at Calais refugee camp

Médecins sans frontières have a presence at the camp as well as the Red Cross. But there is not a lot those helpers could have done about the dirty and wet conditions. Abi adds. “Seeing the kids in the mud was the most shocking thing. They’re absolutely covered in it and they’ve got no choice.”

Billy is most concerned about the treatment of children in the camp, who mainly just want to play about and be normal. He told us: “When we  first arrived, me and Paddy and Jordan took the sleeping bags in on foot. While walking from the car to the main gate, we had this little girl with us, she was 10 years old, her name is Maria. She took a sleeping bag off me, because she wanted to first help carry it.  When we got to the gate one of the policemen walked up to her and snatched the sleeping bag off that 10 year old’s hands. That affected me most, just seeing that happen.”

Being back at university and worrying about their dissertations is very far away, and they are all struggling to adjust. Freddie says: “It’s difficult to try and comprehend why we live to get to live our lives, easy ones. At what cost, what’s the price for that really? It’s quite disturbing.”

The group is upset about the representation of refugees in the British media, and about the fact that nothing seems to be done to limit their struggles. Abi criticises the media harshly.

“It’s all lies. It is literally lies. We heard stories about refugees being frantic and everyone trying to get on the lorries, but it wasn’t like that. So we drove in and there are these massive fences, and we didn’t see a single refugee until we got inside the camps. So the refugees they’re not trying to get into the UK. Everyone is just calm and going about their daily lives. Because they have no other choice but to do that. They’re not scary. I walked through the camp on my own and spent a day in the distribution centre on my own, I wasn’t scared.”

Freddie adds: “Their representation like animals is quite shocking really. You realise that they are just human beings like the rest of us. The way they are portrayed in the media is very animalistic. Just the fact that it is called ‘the Jungle’.”

Johnny thinks we are encountering only the start of a much greater refugee crisis. “It’s their proximity to us that makes it fundamentally important to us,” he says. “The refugee status needs to be upheld. At the moment we’re breaking international law. And there’s no doubt about it. Everyone there deserves stability. What we really need to start lobbying for is for legal teams and for people who understand what is required to get visa applications complete, to go there and assist in great numbers. People’s hopes are slowly sinking”

And even the average uni student can do something. Abi suggests: “Don’t just read it in the paper and then turn off from it. Genuinely try and do something. Whether it is donating money, or really going over there yourself. At the end of the day, what is three days for a student. You spend three days in bed and you go out drinking. Money wise, if you want to go you can afford to go. Only then you will understand. the pictures don’t do it justice, and us telling people doesn’t do it justice.”