Roots and Home

This place feels like home to me now.

It’s going on four years that we’ve lived in Calais. The gray, rainy weather that we get in the winter gives way to warm, mild summers, when we can go to the beach and enjoy living by the sea.

I’m beginning to wonder if I was always meant to be living by the sea.

When we first moved here, I didn’t like it very much. Calais isn’t a beautiful city by French standards. The center of town was completely destroyed during the Second World War, and it was rebuilt quickly and at low cost when peace returned to France.

I like to tell people that there are beautiful places in Calais; you just have to look harder for them here than in other places.

And then there are the people.

I understand that my perspective is colored by the fact that I’m a white American, but I’ve generally found the people here to be quite friendly and warm in a uniquely French way. They may not invite you over right away, but they’ll happily talk about politics or social problems with you. And if you earn your way into their lives, you’ve gained a loyal friend.

We promised ourselves years ago that we were going to try to plant roots wherever we live. I think we’re achieving that here. We have friends here. We work here. Our kids go to school here. This is our community.

Admittedly, we’re different than the average person who works among the migrant community in Calais. Most of the volunteers are young, single people, who themselves form a tight community. I’m part of that volunteer community in my own way, but I can’t go to community events or go out to bars all the time like those without family responsibilities can.

I don’t begrudge them that. I’m trying to find my true community elsewhere.

It’s a common thing among the volunteers as well to conflate Calais the city with the harsh conditions that the migrant community faces. After all, most of the inhumane circumstances they face come down from the local authorities and government. The way that the people we serve are treated is perpetuated by the police and the mayor’s office. In a way, Calais is responsible for the mistreatment of human beings on the move.

But there’s more to Calais than that. One of my goals is to meet locals who are compassionate and sensitive to our cause and expose them to things they may not otherwise have seen. It takes time to build relationships, especially cross-culturally, but we’ve had several successes in this area.

I believe that most of the people in Calais are kind, compassionate people who are simply unaware of the suffering around them, or they’ve become numb to its constant presence and to the stereotypes they face. This region of France is stereotyped as a backwards, uneducated place, where people are poor and all they do is eat fries and drink beer.

Actually those last two points are accurate. People really do love fries and beer here. Maybe that’s part of why I love this place so much. I love those things too.

When we first moved here, I didn’t like it that much. But over the years I’ve learned to love Calais for what it is. It’s my home, and I want to follow the words that God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

One way I want to do that is by connecting the two communities I serve, the locals and the migrants. I believe that introducing he two can bring prosperity to this place.

I will always be an outsider here in a way, but I think that gives me a perspective others don’t have. I am firmly rooted in Calais, and I want to help the people here recognize the deep wealth of the nations and humanity that surround them.

Calais is beautiful in its own way, and I’m happy to live here.