For as long as he can remember, Nenad Purić, also known by the nickname Grča, from the village of Veliki Kupci near Kruševac, has also known about poverty. His mother left him, his father was an alcoholic, and his grandmother and grandfather raised him as best they knew and could. And Grča grew into a hardworking, honest, but above all, good man. However, burdened by numerous life hardships, he thought more about others than about himself. To earn a few dinars and help his grandmother and grandfather, he started working for daily wages since childhood, doing heavy physical labor, but also tending sheep.
“My father didn’t help me, my mother left. My grandmother and grandfather were everything to me. When they died, I was left alone, like a stray dog. I never refused to work, I didn’t choose a job. Just to have enough for life, to survive. Only I know what it was like to earn all those bloody daily wages, but I never complained,” Neša begins his story for RINA.
Not choosing his jobs, Nenad wandered from town to town, tending sheep and working for daily wages. What he earned was enough to survive, but this good young man, although he didn’t have much, knew how to share it with his friends.
About ten years ago, he left his village for Pešter, to a village near Tutin, and became a shepherd for the Zornić family. Today, a decade later, he is not just an employee in that family, but also a member of it.
“He responded to an ad I posted on Facebook. We took him in and Neša justified all our expectations and great trust. He is, above all, a very good and honest man; during this time he has become as close to us as our dearest relative. He is hardworking and agile, we can always rely on him for everything,” says Hajriz Zornić.
In Pešter, Neša has his own accommodation, a salary, and he is not hungry, but as he says, he often dreams of his old house, the hearth where he took his first steps and grew up. The fact that Neša’s goodness was not forgotten by his school friends and that they have now decided to launch an initiative to build him a house speaks to how unpredictable life is and how quickly everything can change.
“We all love Neša and remember him as a good boy, just unfortunate. We decided to raise money, buy bricks, and build him a home so he has a place to return to. To celebrate his patron saint’s day, to light a candle. We owe it to him as people,” say his childhood friends, who are already working on cleaning the foundation of the old house. Leading the initiative is Srđan Gašić, currently in France, who launched the aid collection campaign. “We collected money ourselves for the church construction, we will collect it for Neša too. There is no one in the village who wouldn’t give at least a dinar for him to also restore his roof over his head,” said his childhood friend Marko Vesić.
Anyone who wants Grča, that eternal shepherd under the open sky, to get his own little house, can help. With material, with money, with labor… however. It is enough to call Marko on the phone number 063/8056-107. And maybe Neša never had much, but now he at least knows he has the most valuable thing – people who have not forgotten him.
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Source: RINU, Photo: RINA