Before I met Moshe, I invested most of my savings into my flat thinking that this was a safe bet - if I ever get married, I thought, my future husband would for sure move in with me because what could be better than a new, freshly furnished 4 bedroom loft flat. Having met Moshe, I realized that you cant move a vine-maker with his vineyard to Prague whatever the number of rooms your flat has; you have to start from scratch in his nice but slightly falling apart village house.
I quickly realised that whatever was left from my savings would soon have to be put into our house in Mukov. Being in love not only with my husband but also with the new home and the beautiful countryside around, I gladly started to plan and open the account for minor repairs. The minor repairs soon grew into a more serious problem and it became obvious we would need to change the whole - currently leaking - roof of the house. We have to change it before the winter to prevent further damage of the rafter.
To cut the long story short - it was obvious from the start we wouldn´t be able to handle this repair without extending our morgage. For a couple of days, this gave me a few sleepless nights. Soon, however, I realised how foolish I have been.
Our house is in the area of the town of Most , which is one of the poorest part of the country. During the communist times, there were many coal mines around the city, which gave work to many locals. While many of the mines have been closed now, the unemployment rate here is one of the highest in the Czech Republic. When I went for grocers to the local Tesco´s for the first time and read the board of customer´s adds, I could not miss the several notes saying " A young man willing to accept any job, please call #" Talking to my neigbours, I realized, that many of the locals live on half what Moshe and I make together - and still they raise kids and take care of their houses. In fact, most of the local farm employees work on very little above the minimum vages. Paying a tough extended morgage from a stable well paid job that I - on the top of that - enjoy, does not seem so bad after all.
2 comments:
couldn't you make use of those "young men willing to accept any job"? perhaps they can help you build the roof in exchange for some wine;-) (i mean in moderate volumes!)
you have no idea how professional these things are these days. A new roof is almost a rocket science:-) We are saving the wine for your Josef and Imelda´s visit:-)) (in moderate volumes of course)
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