PILGRIMAGE- A Tale To Canterbury, Kent

Canterbury is a town only 30 minutes from the seaside area of Dover, the Cliffs of Dover. I have seen these chalk, white huge cliff-like walls - the bookends of England.  And from there are a group of extra huge ferries taking pedestrians, trucks, cars, buses back and forth to Calais, France. I mention this area because I learned it is not just a beautiful part of UK. This is where people from south (Africa) but mostly east (Iran, Romania, Syria, Turkey and more) enter the UK without passports or documents. And it is in the truck parking area you will find at times people running from truck to truck trying to pay a driver to hide them somewhere on board for the crossing to UK. 

See the links to read about the Social issue.        

 http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2014/dec/23/calais-migrants-get-to-england-or-die-trying-video.          

And.     http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/23/15-migrants-trying-enter-uk-die-shameful-calais-conditions

January 4 is when Rich and I crossed. The process was interesting. I kept thinking of the old, I Love Lucy shows, when Lucy and Ricky go to Europe passing through the borders, the border uniformed agent checking passports, the gate lifts up and down to let you pass into the country's imagined rigid border. And so was the process from Calais to Dover in the Calais ferry port.

I was stopped after luggage checked at French passport gate. French looked at my passport, released me to UK, 4 feet from the French desk and gate. Now in the UK the Border Agent asked for passports. Rich easy peasy- got his stamp - into UK just 3 feet from me as I remain in France.  In my case, I was told to have Canterbury's contract and papers with me due to 3 months in country. And so it was- Many, many questions. I was warned it would happen. Why are you here 3 months? Is Canterbury paying you? What do you teach? What is sociology? What exactly will you teach? To who do you teach? Explain how you came to teach in Canterbury? May I see your teaching papers? Who created these papers? Where will you live? How is your housing paid? Will you be receiving a salary? Who pays for the salary? Will you be receiving any money from Canterbury during your stay? When do you leave? Do you have access to personal money or credit? Will you be traveling out of UK during the time you are teaching? For what purpose? With who? - the agent turns and goes into his office with door closed. I can see him on the phone reading my passport in his hand. Within a couple minutes - he returns with my passport and stamps it. He tells me each time I return to UK - now I will know how to answer each question - it is important. OK, I say. It's not so easy as compared to Rich's process. He is 2 feet from me actually in UK. Gate is raised, I walk into the UK to the gate of the ferry. Alas, we missed it and wait one hour. It's late, no one else around. Rich and I are laughing, tired-giddy from the I Love Lucy episode we feel we went through. 

Another man, no luggage, thick accent, a dark man, sits with us. We visit with the general passive, polite conversation for one hour. It's Sunday night, 930pm, the station is empty of pedestrians. The three of us wait together. A ferry agent dressed in uniform walks past us, unlocks a small windowed office in front of us, pulls open the window shade and announces in a very official manner- all pedestrians please go through door one to the bus. The three of us look around....it's just us. I walk to the window and ask her, where is door one? She points behind her, lowers the shade, removes herself from the office, locks office up, and walks the three of us to the door one. OK.

Ferry ride is uneventful. Our friend sits very close to us helping in such a gracious way with our baggage - we have a HUGE bag we call Bertha, and she was cumbersome. We offer to buy him a coffe to thank for his help with our luggage. Our friend stays near us during the 45 minute trip over English Channel to Dover. We arrive. Lots of waiting - very alone on this huge ferry. The three of us stand and wait to be released off the ferry. I ask our friend, where in UK are you going? London, he said, to stay with a cousin. Where are you from?, I ask. "I am from a region in Iraq, Kurdistan, and I am Kurd, you may know that word from your USA war in Iraq!"  And then he spoke fast and more - angry.  I wasn't able to follow. He was very angry. I hugged him. I don't know why and he embraced me too. I said it was a terrible war. He agreed. The gates opened, we hugged again and walked quickly off the ferry together. A car was waiting for him in an empty parking lot. We made eye contact and waved goodbye and best wishes. He returned our wave.  I asked Rich, what was that about?! 

For us no taxis, not a soul around- it's Sunday night after 11:30pm. We do not have a working phone...kinda an, oh crap moment! After a bit, an older gentleman leaving off work from the ferry, walked by, asked if we got off the ferry and where are we going? He told us we are in the taxi port and to wait it out.......didn't feel so promising. Off he went after we spoke. He turned around to come back and told us, he called a taxi and we must agree to his story, that we had a taxi ordered but it didn't show. We thanked him for making that call for us and agreed to keep his lie true. The half hour taxi ride, very late now, in heavy fog took us to Canterbury.....an incredible pilgrimage into Canterbury.