They are losing their last hope – News online

For a decade and a half, “Vesta” has followed and supported the poor family of Svetlana and Darko Jelic from Pešter, who, with seven children, live in the small and poor village of Janturine, “lost” in the mountains on the very border of Serbia and Montenegro. Although good people, mostly our readers, built them a new house five years ago, to which water and electricity were brought, the Jelićs still live in an old log cabin without lights, with little chance of changing anything soon.

Dilapidated log cabin

When they first appeared on the pages of our Humanitarian Bridge in 2009, Svetlana and Darko lived in a dilapidated log cabin without water and electricity and had only sons Mić and Miloš, now they also have Marko, Marjan, Marija, Marijana and Milica who do not yet know what is a computer and a television and they write their homework by candlelight and kerosene lamps.

When, in the fall of 2019, after several articles in “Vesti” and with numerous pleas and appeals from the humanitarian Hido Muratović, the Electric Power Company of Serbia built us a new prefabricated house, to which the electricity was run for two and a half kilometers, and the water for more than a kilometer, we thought that all our problems were in the past and that we were the happiest family in the world, we were convinced that we would move in quickly and that the good people, who have been helping us for a decade and a half, would help us to finally let’s get down, throw away the kerosene and start a new and more beautiful life – says Svetlana Jelić, mother of seven children and pillar of this family.

Unfortunately, we stopped at the very end, when we had only one step left to the goal. In the new house, we managed to put a washing machine and two couches, which were donated to us by benefactors from our diaspora and Novi Pazar. at least another 2,000 euros, because we have to buy a wood stove, an electric stove, a refrigerator, a television, a sink, a table, chairs and a few more beds. We were also thinking of selling some of the livestock, but we gave up, because we wouldn’t have anything to live on – adds Svetlana.

The Jelić family is very modest, they live a semi-nomadic life and, except for food, school and drowning their children, they have no other expenses, but they also have no income, because, apart from some cheese and milk, which they have no one to sell, they produce nothing.

Completely isolated

– It’s as if God has forgotten us and condemned us to live in the dark and that our little ones write their homework with the light of candles and lamps. We don’t go anywhere, and no one comes to us, we are completely isolated from the rest of the world, we don’t even have a television to watch the news, our children still don’t know what a cartoon is, Mićo and Miloš finished the eighth grade and stayed in the village, because we couldn’t further to educate them, nothing good awaits them here. We are grateful to the state for the house and electricity, thank you very much to EPS and everyone who helped us to survive in this backwater, thank you to the readers of “Vesta”, thank you to the humanitarian Hido Muratović, thank you to everyone who has not forgotten us yet. Although we are slowly losing all hope, we still believe that, despite all the problems our diaspora is facing, good people will appear who will help us finally move in and be happy – adds Darko Jelić.

Veliki snegovi

The village of Janturine belongs to the local community of Bare, it is 40 kilometers away from Sjenica, there is no school, no store, Jelići has no neighbors nearby, when heavy snows fall, Darko takes the children to school in the remote village of Crvsko on horses, which do not yet have electricity. is also the fact that their house and “ranch” are located right on the line that separates Serbia and Montenegro, so that there would be no “interstate problems”, the EPS decided to give them a little further, on the territory of Serbia, build a new house which, unfortunately, they are not using yet, because as they say, they cannot live only “within four walls”.

The hardest for the holidays

The youngest Jelići say that life in the dilapidated log cabin is the hardest for them during the New Year’s and Christmas holidays when, since they have no light, they have to fall asleep with the first dusk.

If only we had a television to end the long nights. Earlier, before a new house was built, and while we had three children, the diaspora regularly sent us some help, Marija Šerifović once sent us beds and sheets, there were also offers from benefactors to buy us a powerful generator for electricity, and then everything suddenly stopped – complains Svetlana Jelić.