Mevlida Mehanovic from the village Daljegosta, 50 kilometers away from Srebrenica, is a true example of a hard working and successful women in the countryside.
After the last war, Mevlida, together with her husband Vahid and two daughters, lived in Zivinice near Tuzla. However, nostalgia and love for the homeland returned this family to Srebrenica and their village Daljegosta, where Mevlida and Vahid are currently living alone; older daughter got married, and the younger is at school in Tuzla.
When they first came back, the things did not look so great, but they knew that they will not give up, because they can only see their future in Daljegosta.
“When we, after 20 years, saw this property all in grass, it was difficult, but, we cleaned our fields, one by one. When we cleaned everything, we did not want to let it get in the grass again, and we planted one raspberry orchard, then another one and today we have 7000 seedlings of raspberries. Last year, we planted 1 dunum of chokeberry, and this year one dunum of blueberries,” said Mevlida.
Today Mevlida, with the help of her husband Vahid, is taking care a total of 7 dunums of land, and she is convinced that they will not stop here, because they are planning to expand plantations, and start processing the fruit. At the recent fair of agriculture and tourism in Kragljivoda near Srebrenica, Mevlida presented very tasty jams made from chokeberry and raspberry and natural apple juices.
“Now that I’ve made these first products, when I processed the fruit that we produced, I realized that we did not made a mistake when we decided to return. My wish is that more young people returns to village. I’m sure they will not regret it,” said Mevlida.
A person can live a happy life from agriculture and countryside, says this woman. Her great desire is to get all the necessary equipment in the future and start increasing production of jams and juices, as she sees this as an excellent opportunity for all farmers.
“Why we would not make a finished product here, refine it and sell somewhere abroad. There are many natural sources of water here, in our village, so why not. In the future, we can also think about bottling and water flavored with fruits of the region,” said Mevlida and added that there are many ideas and opportunities for young people in the countryside, and that they only need the will and desire.
“It is better to live from your own work in the countryside, but to be in the soup kitchen or forever on the unemployment bureau,” concluded this hard working woman.
The biggest support to Mevlida in all of her ideas is her husband Vahid, who is disabled, but helps his wife whenever he can.
“We went back to restore our property, and we did that. Today we have a decent income and we are more than fine. We are the biggest support to each other and we can do much together. We’ve never regretted for returning to our village,” said Vahid Mehanovic.
(Source: fokus.ba)
