Sleeping in the Jungle is not easy.  In the fortnight we’ve been here the place has become increasingly nocturnal. We accepted the invitation of an Afghan friend to stay in his shelter for 10 days while we volunteered with an agency.  Previously we had only been to the Jungle in the day-time.  Our friend (I’m calling him Zebedee) has a shop in the rough end of town near the night-clubs.  Our first night we discovered that full-volume arabic beat-box from 8pm to 2am would be our sentence, and that the light bulb in the shelter would only go off at 2am when the shop closed.  On the second night we simply took out the bulb and provided ourselves with earplugs and tea-brewing facilities.

Dry and cosy in a shelter made of tarp, 4×4, pallets and insulating felt.

We’ve been coping but the party keeps ending a bit later.  This morning it petered out at 7:45am.  I have a feeling this reflects the increasing desperation people are feeling as the noose tightens around them.

The 100m no-go zone that the mayor imposed next to the motorway has now been fully bulldozed.  Most people expect another fence.  The CRS used to turn up in force every evening as the volunteers left for the day and beat refugees they caught leaving the camp at night or returning to it in the morning.  It was a cat and mouse game.  Now its more gladiatorial as they’ve cleared all the cover, leveled the ditches and made it easy for themselves to force the migrants into a bottleneck where they can be more efficiently harried and hurt.  I never dreamed I’d be seeing all this with my own eyes in a civilised country.  For the ordinary volunteer it’s a chilling and disorientating experience.  Where’s up, where’s down, what’s happened to right and wrong? If these people don’t matter, then maybe I don’t matter!  Are we all brutal at heart?

We’ve known Adam almost as long as we’ve known Zebedee – since October.  Last Sunday we took the afternoon off to visit friends around the place.  Adam has been in the Jungle for five and a half months and he’s finding having nothing to do is undoing him.  He was really pleased to see us again and invited us into his shelter to have tea and private conversation.

Adam has found a great use for a crocheted shawl.

I’m so grateful for all the effort and donations that have made the shelters possible, allowing people to be warm and dry and have some dignity.  To avoid turning to drink and worse Adam keeps himself busy with art. He had acquired a classical guitar which he loved and had learned enough songs on it to perform on the Jungle Globe stage some nights.  It was his joy and his outlet.  But it got stolen, as have three successive phones.  That morning he’d just returned from a walk round the camp collecting cs gas shells and the rubber ends which are popping off and further injuring people.  When he can get another phone he plans to do a photo exhibition at the Globe.  We felt sad as we left Adam.  There was really nothing much to say.  He’s in a fight against the desperation of his situation and even he is not sure he can win.

The previous Friday night we were hanging out at Zebedee’s in the evening waiting for the kettle to boil for our hot water bottles.  Activists from No Borders who were hosting the demonstration for the next day were visiting all the social spaces in the camp trying to drum up interest.  Generally people weren’t that keen but it provoked discussion.  I was grilled by those who could speak Urdu, Pushto or English and my replies were translated for others.  “Would this demo make a difference?  Would David Cameron listen if they went?”  Here was a group of men from places where might is right asking me in effect if democracy works and if human rights would be respected!  It was so hard to answer.  I have no experience of the No Borders people other than those who came to Zebedee’s that night but they struck me as manipulative and I was uncomfortable.  Still, they struck up some good marching songs in Italian and the Pathan’s who love music immediately clapped along and while the music lasted there was joy.  It turned to sadness the next day when we saw the negative effects of the demo and heard that six refugees and two activists had been jailed for 6 months.

Imagine our shock when Adam told us he’d been one of the refugees who made it on to the P&O ferry!  I think it was very unwise but I can understand how it happened.  There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a plan afoot among the local police to provoke people into positions from which they can be easily discredited and the activists have played straight into their hands.  Some of the good honest people I’ve met volunteering out here, the one’s who’ve spent the most time in the Jungle believe that the migrants would all be shot by the CRS given half a chance and that all that stops that happening is the public spot-light and presence of so many witnesses.

A maternal anger burns tonight as I write.  Because the supposed keepers of the peace have beaten my Arthur.  Saturday night, demo over, we made it back to the Jungle by circuitous routes as the police were blocking the main road in van loads.  At that point we didn’t even know about the breach in the port security and the conflict on the P&O ferry.  Arthur wasn’t part of any of that.  Arthur was at Zebedee’s showing us photos on his phone of his best friends he missed back home and recounting anecdotes.  He’s 16 and cricket mad.  His dream is to get to England and play cricket.  He played me a song on his phone and sang along, surprised I didn’t know the Bollywood top hit.  His eye’s half-closed in pleasure, his sweet voice crooning the love-song, he’s a dreamer and an innocent and far too young to be alone in a place of growing vice and desperation.  Arthur’s smile melts my heart every time I see him, which is every night at Zebedee’s where Arthur is fascinated by making the hot water bottles.

Leaving the Jungle at dawn via the back entrance.

“How long do they stay hot? – 5 hours? – Wow!” “Technology,” he sighs thinking blissfully of Britain and the haven of peace and opportunity he imagines awaits him across the sea. We take photo’s of me pouring hot water, he wants to be in it but I explain his face mustn’t appear on the internet.  So we take another photo just for us of Arthur and me, arms around each other, love unobstructed.  But last night I returned to the shop to see Arthur hiding like a hermit crab in the back, his arm in plaster and his smile less brave.  He’d made an attempt with the others that night and got caught on the way back.  I’m distressed to think of his pain as he limped back to safety but his wrist didn’t break falling from a fence, tripping in a chase, or in a fight.  His wrist was broken with a truncheon as he tried to return to the wooden shacks and tents that are all he’s allowed to call home.  Which is a shrinking safety.

In Adam’s words, “Afghanistan not safe, Pakistan not safe, here not safe – where is SAFE?”