Nothing sweet for 6-year-old Honey in the Calais’ mud
Honey is six. She has tumbling black curls, thick eyelashes, and big brown eyes. Her favourite colour is pink, and she loves Kinder chocolate.
She was hidden inside the hold of a small boat with 55 other people, for a total of 25 hours, as part of her month long journey from Syria to Calais.
There was no food or water in the hold, but the captain, who was Russian and very good at navigating stormy seas, gave Honey’s mum some water for her.
Honey was too scared to eat or speak inside the boat, but she remembers how bad it smelled in the dark squashy space, and how sick she felt.
Honey and her mum and dad travelled through loads of places — Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany and France — on foot, by bus, by train.
The journey to the edge of France from their country of origin took them longer a month to complete. Now they are in Calais in the cold muddy camp known as the Jungle, because they would like to cross over to England, where Honey’s grandparents live.
Honey is not, however, Syrian. She is an Iraqi Kurd. Her mum, who is 27, was forbidden by her parents to finish her school education.
When a boy at school talked to Honey’s mum, he was murdered by Honey’s uncles, and Honey’s mum was not allowed go to school anymore. She wasn’t allowed to work either, even though she had taught herself to speak English from watching television. When Honey’s mum and dad were 19, their families arranged their marriage.
But Honey’s mum still wanted to work. Even though she was now married, Honey’s uncles still forbade her from leaving the house. So when Honey was a small baby, her parents moved to Syria, to get away from the uncles.
All was well for a time, until the war meant that it was no longer safe to stay there. Too many bombs, not enough food. Honey’s mum and dad sold everything they could to raise the €8,000 to pay the smugglers to hide them in the little boat.
They have been in the Jungle in Calais for two weeks now. Honey went with her mum and dad one night to the entrance of the tunnel to England, but she got really frightened when the police sprayed them with hot gas that made their eyes burn, and she was crying. Her mum and dad are too scared to try that again.
Now she lives in a leaking unheated caravan — she is one of the luckier children at the camp, because unlike many of the other refugee kids, she is with her parents, and has basic shelter. She still got sick there though, and her mum was really worried. There were no doctors.
Honey’s mum and dad don’t know what will happen to the three of them. They carry on, day by day, waiting and hoping, in the Calais mud, surrounded by riot police.
