SEE, daughter, my new house! This is not a small kiosk, but my palace. I have new linoleum, and a stove.
Photo by Z. Rašić
I pawned last night and it was so warm … Look at the wreath of flowers! All my stuff is here, on this shelf. Just more electricity to fix me and bring me a TV, I’m going to enjoy here like never before …
As she introduces us to her new home, a kiosk of several square meters that was provided to her by good neighbors, transferred to her yard and arranged for life, Dušica Vemić (68) from Donja Mutnica, near Paraćin, simply shines. Inside the kiosk-room, and in it a bed, a table and a chair, a shelf with clothes and bedding, a new stove with a chunk nicely conducted through the tin roof.
The inner walls look warm, they are lined with paneling. For her, a real luxury compared to a dilapidated collapsing umbrella. The kiosk is now her new roof over her head.
Old house and interior of new home, Photo by Z. Rašić
Since her mother’s death, Dusica has been living alone, in poor health, with a pension of 13,000 dinars.
Not enough for life, let alone for any maintenance of the ancient umbrella. The roof has been collapsing for months, and now it is in such a state that it will completely collapse with the first snow. That was the reason for several young residents of Donja Mutnica to initiate an action to urgently evict Dušica from the life-threatening guardhouse. They were looking for the fastest solution, so they came up with a kiosk.
– We needed 70,000 dinars to buy the traffic, which we found. With the help of posts on social networks, we collected in about twenty days and more, about a hundred thousand.
Photo by Z. Rašić
Photo by Z. Rašić
We filled the traffic area with gravel before we brought it to her yard and set it up. Due to the heat, we lifted it a little from the ground. We got a bed, new linoleum, a wood stove, a shelf and a shelf, a new chair … We didn’t even have anything to move from the ruined furniture house. Now we have to connect the electricity to it and do additional insulation of the room from the inside. We also need to provide her with wood. Grandma is looking forward to the TV, so we promised her that too – Miloš Đurđević, one of the initiators of this action, told “Novosti”. He regularly visits Dušica to see how she has settled down and what else she needs.
Miloš Đurđević, Photo by Z. Rašić
More than forty households donated funds for the purchase of traffic, so Đurđević emphasizes that almost a fifth of the houses in the village participated in Dušica’s care. There were also a few donors on the sidelines. It was not a lot of money, so it was collected quickly, in less than a month.
– I knew at the beginning that we would succeed, we just had to start. There is solidarity and humanity in the village. We are aware that traffic is not an ideal solution, but it was the fastest we could do. Dušica has moved in, you can see for yourself how happy she is because of that – says Miloš, greeting the visibly satisfied woman who escorted us to the gate.
He now sleeps in a dry, warm and clean bed. As she says, for her, that is more than enough.
MORE WOOD TO OVERCOME WINTER
SINCE the last demolition of the roof on the umbrella, before she moved to the kiosk, Dušica, out of fear, slept in the hallway because the ceiling in one room had fallen, while the other had not been used for a long time. He keeps a few chickens there, and the dog sleeps when it’s cold. Yet even such a poor home was her home. That is why, says Dušica, he will not use anything from the collapsed roof for heating. She hopes that her good neighbors will provide her with wood to get through the winter.
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