Capable, sacrificial, and hardworking – these are just a few words to describe Serbian women who have chosen to stay in the countryside, to live and work there. They may not be employed in companies, but they work almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year. One such woman is certainly Jelena Mitrović (47) from the village of Rajkovac near Topola.
She married at 19, and her husband, two years her senior, moved to her property, as the saying goes, on dowry. Since then, for almost three full decades, they have lived and farmed together in harmony, hand in hand. On their family farm, they now have several dozen head of cattle, cultivate the land, and produce vegetable seedlings.
“We now have about 30 head of cattle, 15 cows, ten heifers, and six calves from four cows. Now, for the first time, two of our cows had twins five days apart, and the newborns were waiting for us in the hallway when we went to feed and milk them; they calved on their own. A true blessing. We started with three cows in 2020, kept the female calves, and, of course, each one was baptized and given a name, and so in these five years, we reached 30. We cultivate 30 hectares of land, of which 10 hectares are ours and 20 are leased; my husband and I do it all ourselves,” Jelena tells RINA.
The Mitrovićs have two sons who are employed but help their parents on the farm in their free time. Jelena and Radovan manage everything on their own, as Jelena does all the tasks alongside him, even driving a tractor.
“I do everything equally with my husband; I drive the tractor, bale, rake, open bales, and everything that needs to be done with tractors, I do it together with my husband. Farm work might seem hard for a woman, but nothing is difficult when you love what you do and, of course, when you have support, like I have from my husband,” our interviewee confidently states.
Her workday on the farm starts early and often ends late in the evening. Still, Jelena does not complain; she says that with good organization, everything can be achieved.
“I get up at half past six, we drink coffee, and at seven, we’re at work. My husband cleans the stable, I start milking, and we feed them. When he finishes cleaning, he moves to the other stable with the heifers and pigs, I finish milking and feeding the calves, and then we go inside. Breakfast is waiting for us, prepared by my mother, and then after breakfast, we go on to prepare food for the livestock. I get on one tractor with the rake, my husband with the press, and so on all day until we finish. Then in the afternoon, back to the stable, and so on every day; food for the livestock must be prepared,” Jelena emphasizes.
She also advises other women to follow their hearts and not shy away from life in the countryside, because sometimes true peace and salvation can be found precisely in a quiet life away from the city’s hustle and bustle.
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Source: RINA, Photo: RINA