Kamal’s Story

Remember Kamal, he had bad toothache after reaching a CAO back in November? I wrote to him the other day to catch up with how he is doing. I said he always looks so happy on Facebook alongside his friends. “Yeah” he wrote, “It’s superficial, pictures can hide a lot of things.”

“It’s been almost 10 months since I left the jungle of Calais to Laval en Mayenne. They promised no Dublin, but that wasn’t true, personally I waited 6 months for Dublin to be finished. The good thing is no one is sent back to Italy or Hungary, and yet many have been refused by OFPRA, a lot more have been accepted as refugees.

I went to OFPRA before 4 months, I’m still waiting for what could be acception or rejection, it’s truelly difficult, to wait for long time, with having nothing to do rather than eating sleeping, it’s boring and lots of worrying.

I’m so grateful for those whom helping me to learn French, to go somewhere in the city, village or countryside. The bénévoles are my family now, I love them like I love my family,

What else can I tell you?

The assistants socials generally aren’t good with us there is a lot of misunderstanding and troubles between us – we don’t speak French fluently neither they nor Arabic, Dari, Bashto and Tigrina. So they are not happy with us and so do we not happy with them.

Normally we suffer more with administrative issues because of language. They give us an appointment with maps and tell us go- do on your own – but it is too difficult.

I like French language very much, I’m doing my best to learn speaking and communicating, every time I speak to myself that, I’m going to speak French fluently by next month, 2 months or even 3 months.

I hope I can be accepted by France, If I got accepted I will go Back to school and learn I want study to be a Teacher, I like teaching, through my experience in Calais I’m convinced that the best way to to help people is to teach them something new.

Bravo and respect to Care4Calais and all like them who help us.”

We keep in touch with many of the refugees to make sure they are doing all right and see how we can help. We sympathise with their agonisingly long waits but celebrate their achievements, like Kamal’s English and French progress! That is four languages he now speaks plus some Italian.