SLOVENIA'S 5 CORE VALUES

After the closure of the eight-year school, the building was abandoned and fell into disrepair for a long time. It was then converted into a block of eight flats.

Dragica and her two sons also decided to buy an apartment in 1998. She saw an advertisement in a newspaper. It offered a good credit. Her late husband's cousin took her to see the apartment and she liked it immediately, along with the surroundings. She already knew a villager, Renata, who said to her, "If you need a job in retirement, I'll offer you one on our farm."

It was 2012 and she had been retired for three years when one day it dawned on her, "Why don't I cut the grass around the block, tidy up the neighbourhood where necessary?" And so it began. "I clean the pavements when the roads are done, because they have a lot of work to do. When I see it's necessary, I go and tidy up. A good hour and it's done. Sometimes I wait for the grass to dry a bit. And then I go and sweep. It's a pleasure for me to do it. And also to see the surroundings tidy.

Last time I cleaned the needles at the firehouse and took them to the manure, because they are for the manure. And I don't fill up the dustbins. Here, where we have a billboard, the wind has blown all the bricks over the roof tiles. I picked it up and put it back together in the roof tiles."

In the early days of her stay here in the block, the residents themselves mowed the grass. Now it is done by public workers as part of public works. They already know her and tease her: "You're going home." That means she is so hard-working.  

Her good work was noticed by the firefighters and she was awarded a written certificate. She has also been noticed by the elderly, who like to help her with landscaping work in spring, summer and autumn. 

And yet there are people who have misgivings about all this, like her two sons, who, in good faith, say to her, "Why are you doing this? You shouldn't have to. You could sit at home and rest now you're retired."  

So why?

"It's always a good feeling when I tidy up and then to see it done. Why not keep being active if I can? I do a good job and I enjoy it. When I was born, my mother left for Domžale with her belly full of bread, and I grew up with my grandmother.On Saturdays, we swept all the straw in the yard behind the cows, so that there was none anywhere." She happily says that this is what she loved to do when she was a child. At the same time, it opens up a sense of awareness of the cleanliness or tidiness of the environment, of belonging to a place. "It's also true that we can't have it so overgrown. A lot of people turn up here. Lots of tourists too."  

Lea Lebar, 12. 2. 2025