I know for sure that it was not easy for my mom to take care of 5 children under such primitive conditions. With little money from the social services, there wasn’t much else. Food was rationed and not always available. I never heard my mom complaining.
My mom know allot about nature and used what ever she found to feed us. I remember picking sting nettle, oh what a pain that was, but it made a very delicious tasting Spinach. We picked wild raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries just to name a few. The forest around the village was rich with all kind of natural food that God gave us to eat. We all loved the wild mushrooms.
After the farmers brought in the harvest from the field, we collected the grain left behind. The bread my mom baked with the grains was very good but there wasn’t much else to put on the bread. That didn’t stopped my mom. She took flour and some oil and browned it in the skillet. This, on our bread with a little sugar, was wonderful. I actually liked it and I still do!
I don’t think I have to tell you how hard it was to take a bath. Carrying the buckets of clean fresh water from the spring and dumping the dirty water down into the drainage was a job by itself. As I think about it right now I have to smile. My sister and I tried to be the first ones to take a bath because we had to share the bath water.
After some time, I don’t remember exactly when we received another apartment; if I can call it that. Two rooms over the administrative office, second floor. It was nice that we only had to go down one flight to the bathroom. I spare you with the details, just know it was cold and there was no room freshener. Our fresh clean water came out of the neighbors kitchen but we still had to dump it outside in to the drainage.
Some small things have changed, and we felt blessed.