CALAIS, France: The tranquility of the Port of Calais that greeted me last week showed no hint of what was going on not 80km away across its highway. The only grim indication was, perhaps, the miles and miles of high fences with barbed wires that had witnessed so many desperate and futile attempts to freedom across the English Channel.
With two friends, I had made the decision to join Sofinee Harun and husband Jamalulail Ismail of the By Road to Malaysia fame two years ago, to chip in with whatever we could in their Kitchen in Calais project that had been feeding hundreds of the thousands of refugees from far-flung trouble-torn countries like Afganistan, Syria, Iraq, Eritrea and Sudan.
I couldn’t have chosen a better pair: Hairani Muhammad runs Makan Cafe in Portobello and Hamidah Jaafar, the other half of Tuk Din of Tuk Din Flavours of Malaysia Restaurant in London.
With heavy bags full of winter clothes and duvets as well as packets of Adabi curry powder and Maggi mee, we three grandmothers from London heaved ourselves onto the train to Dover and boarded the ferry to Calais, spurred on by words of encouragement and cheer from people along the way.
We were met at the ferry terminal by Jamalulail, 46, an engineer, who drove his family across 26 countries in a motor caravan in 2013.
Jamalulail or Jamal, was his “a joke a minute” self; full of wit and humour about his new venture. But that was his way of coping with heartbreaking stories that he listened to almost everyday, as he fitted the gas stoves in makeshift tents that dotted The Jungle (a migrant encampment) in Calais.
“My father named me Jamalulail, but here I am known as ‘Gas’. Every refugee comes to me and says, ‘Gas’. They need gas for their stoves to cook hot food,” he quipped.
Indeed, Jamal and his wife, Sofinee, a spritely niqabbed woman in a land where the niqab is banned, had in the past month, made The Jungle their home, the refugees their friends and the young ones, their children, as Sofinee succintly posts in her Facebook page.
Their concern for the plight of the refugees, which gained massive publicity after some tragic deaths in the tunnel and as The Jungle overflowed with the arrival of more refugees everyday, made them garner support from friends and their families.
“We managed to get RM10,000 from our friends, mostly the association of Anak Perlis working in the Middle East. Another RM5,000 came from our supporters from the By Road to Malaysia website and our UK Store in Nilai,” explained Sofinee, a mother of four, who managed to tear herself away from her kitchen, where every minute a refugee would be signalling that he needed food or chai (tea).
“When we first came to The Jungle, we saw that the refugees had lots of canned food. We wanted to do something different. Sofinee suggested we provide them gas stoves so that they could cook for themselves some hot meals, especially with winter coming,” said Jamal, whose responsibilities since delivering the first 20 stoves have diversified to treating wounds and cuts to counselling frustrated and demoralised refugees who came on foot, boats, buses and rail only to find hostility and rejection.
From 20 stoves sponsored mainly by Malaysians, Jamal has now fitted more than 100 stoves donated by well-wishers who saw the success and practicality of the stoves.
Then the couple built a makeshift kitchen called Kitchen in Calais, now brimming with canned food, rice, bread, and fresh fruits and vegetables, which came in boxes delivered by volunteers from charities and individuals from as far as England and Belgium.
From the small shed next to one of nine mosques in The Jungle, Sofinee and her team of volunteers have fed hundreds, if not thousands, of hungry refugees.
Along the short journey to The Jungle, young men on foot and bicycles freely roamed the streets of Calais, some sitting on the curb; almost all with mobile phones. They walked in groups by the highway, perhaps to get supplies from the local stores, which they later sold at a higher price in The Jungle in their own makeshift grocery stores. They, too, have to earn a living while waiting for the new promised life.
It was our luck that the entrance to The Jungle had a heavy police presence that afternoon. There had been rumours that the refugees would be moved. No cars without permits were allowed in. A kind resident opposite the camp had allowed Jamal to park his car outside his house, while we lugged the bag with the curry powder and walked into The Jungle.
The networking amongst the volunteers was amazing; one phone call and a volunteer on a bicycle appeared to lift our burden. Language was a barrier to negotiate with the police, but there were always interpreters on hand.
So we walked along lanes littered with piles and piles of donated clothes, left to be collected by garbage trucks. Food parcels rotted in the bushes where young boys played basketball, while others stood on high ground trying to get signals for their long distance calls.
Every few yards, clusters of young men huddled around a cyclist vigorously peddling on the spot, powering a dynamo to charge mobile phones. They take turns — that’s their only means of communication with their families and friends at home, or those who managed to escape to the English shores.
Jamal had to stop many times and people asked him for gas tanks or stoves. He couldn’t bring any in until the police allowed him to drive in with his car.
Inside The Jungle, it was like a different world altogether. Mobile toilets lined the dusty lanes, food trucks and vans delivering supplies zoomed by with volunteers in their uniforms. Thousands of tents were erected close to each other, families were given bigger tents or caravans and, generally, people were in good spirits, but understandably shied away from cameras. They feared for the lives of their loved ones back home.
We saw more rubbish heaps and piles of clothes and shoes from people with good intentions but bad planning. Some used The Jungle to dump things they do not need. High-heeled shoes for a night out and handbags for social outings do not have a place in The Jungle.
No matter, we have set our hearts and intention for three full days in The Jungle to help make a difference.
(Read the second part about life in ‘The Jungle’ in the ’New Sunday Times’ next week.)