Bassim
VIP Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2008
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Bosnian
- Home Country
- Bosnia Herzegovina
- Current Location
- Sweden
Would you please correct the mistakes in my text?
I was sex years old when I experienced a terrible fear for the first time in my life. Around that time, we had a lodger who lived with his family in our attic. He worked as a draughtsman in an architectural bureau, and his wife in a large paper mill. It was in the 70s, when Yugoslavia was developing state-run industry and people from the countryside moved to towns and cities, where the need for working-force was growing. The main problem was housing, despite many new homes the government was building across the country. The state bureaucracy in the communism was notoriously ineffective and corrupt, and those in power always took care first of their immediate and extended families before helping the others.
If you worked in a state-run company, you were entitled to a flat, but the main problem was that hundreds of others in your company had the same wish. You had to put your name on the list, and wait. If you could become a friend with the CEO and his cronies, or pay bribes, your waiting time could be shortened substantially. Otherwise, you had to wait for years. Thus, many people rented flats second hand, or lived with their parents and grandparents in the same homes, although they could have been in their thirties, and even forties. But you seldom heard anyone complain about overcrowding because workers understood that you couldn’t build millions of homes with the click of a finger. At least, there were no homeless on the streets, and people took care of each other.
We were fortunate in living in our own home with a garden and large orchard. Our lodger and his wife were like our family. They dropped by and drank coffee a couple of times a week, and his wife gave me pastries and cakes whenever she cooked them. His son, who was a year younger than I was, became my best playmate. The life was peaceful and quiet, and the word “stressful” was almost unknown.
Our lodger drove a little car, made in Yugoslavia, under the Fiat licence, which was the most popular car at that time in the country. Everyone used it: workers, lawyers, artists, professors, engineers, pensioners, and farmers. It was cheap and you could buy spare parts even in the most backward village in the country. We had no garage, so our lodger asked Dad if he could build a lean-to one with wooden planks. Dad was enthusiastic about the idea, as he knew that our lodger was a DIY buff, who had already redecorated our attic in such a professional way that it left Dad speechless.
On a Saturday morning, we drove in a little car to the outskirts of the town so that they could browse among building material to see what they were going to buy and to figure out the costs. When we arrived, they told us they were not going to stay too long, then they locked the doors, and went away. The area was large, and to my child’s eyes it appeared enormous, interspersed with warehouses and stacks and piles of all kinds of construction material: bricks, roof tiles, planks, beams, metal tubes, steel plates and other things I knew nothing about. Workers in blue overalls moved around at a slow pace, some of them loaded a truck with cement bags, and were covered in grey dust from head to toe.
After a while, I grew anxious. At that time, we couldn’t avail ourselves of modern technology like video games or tablets. You couldn’t keep your troubles out by shooting aliens, or slaying all kinds of demons. When left alone, we children had to turn to our imagination and feelings for consolation.
I glanced at all directions, hoping to see Dad, but he had vanished without trace. As if playing a trick on me, my mind told me I was never going to see him again. I looked at the boy beside me and saw the same fear in his eyes. I had to get out, I thought. I had to find him before it was too late. The car was a coupe, and I tried to open the door from my backseat, but all my attempts failed. Panic held me in its grip and spread through my body like blood flowing in my veins. I started to shake uncontrollably. I had never experienced anything similar before. Tears welled in my eyes and trickled down my cheeks. I cried out. My neighbour followed suit, and soon we shouted ourselves hoarse.
“Crybabies,” Dad roared as he stared at us from the other side of the window. He grinned at our lodger and laughed. He opened the door and bent inside the car. “Look at our heroes. Surely, a lot of girls will fight for them,” he said. We fell silent, ashamed of ourselves.
Fear left me in peace for twenty-two years, but then came to see me like a special friend. I lay on a dusty concrete floor in a warehouse turned into a prison camp. I trembled and whimpered as I watched and listened to prison guards torturing my neighbours for hours. I waited for my turn…
I was sex years old when I experienced a terrible fear for the first time in my life. Around that time, we had a lodger who lived with his family in our attic. He worked as a draughtsman in an architectural bureau, and his wife in a large paper mill. It was in the 70s, when Yugoslavia was developing state-run industry and people from the countryside moved to towns and cities, where the need for working-force was growing. The main problem was housing, despite many new homes the government was building across the country. The state bureaucracy in the communism was notoriously ineffective and corrupt, and those in power always took care first of their immediate and extended families before helping the others.
If you worked in a state-run company, you were entitled to a flat, but the main problem was that hundreds of others in your company had the same wish. You had to put your name on the list, and wait. If you could become a friend with the CEO and his cronies, or pay bribes, your waiting time could be shortened substantially. Otherwise, you had to wait for years. Thus, many people rented flats second hand, or lived with their parents and grandparents in the same homes, although they could have been in their thirties, and even forties. But you seldom heard anyone complain about overcrowding because workers understood that you couldn’t build millions of homes with the click of a finger. At least, there were no homeless on the streets, and people took care of each other.
We were fortunate in living in our own home with a garden and large orchard. Our lodger and his wife were like our family. They dropped by and drank coffee a couple of times a week, and his wife gave me pastries and cakes whenever she cooked them. His son, who was a year younger than I was, became my best playmate. The life was peaceful and quiet, and the word “stressful” was almost unknown.
Our lodger drove a little car, made in Yugoslavia, under the Fiat licence, which was the most popular car at that time in the country. Everyone used it: workers, lawyers, artists, professors, engineers, pensioners, and farmers. It was cheap and you could buy spare parts even in the most backward village in the country. We had no garage, so our lodger asked Dad if he could build a lean-to one with wooden planks. Dad was enthusiastic about the idea, as he knew that our lodger was a DIY buff, who had already redecorated our attic in such a professional way that it left Dad speechless.
On a Saturday morning, we drove in a little car to the outskirts of the town so that they could browse among building material to see what they were going to buy and to figure out the costs. When we arrived, they told us they were not going to stay too long, then they locked the doors, and went away. The area was large, and to my child’s eyes it appeared enormous, interspersed with warehouses and stacks and piles of all kinds of construction material: bricks, roof tiles, planks, beams, metal tubes, steel plates and other things I knew nothing about. Workers in blue overalls moved around at a slow pace, some of them loaded a truck with cement bags, and were covered in grey dust from head to toe.
After a while, I grew anxious. At that time, we couldn’t avail ourselves of modern technology like video games or tablets. You couldn’t keep your troubles out by shooting aliens, or slaying all kinds of demons. When left alone, we children had to turn to our imagination and feelings for consolation.
I glanced at all directions, hoping to see Dad, but he had vanished without trace. As if playing a trick on me, my mind told me I was never going to see him again. I looked at the boy beside me and saw the same fear in his eyes. I had to get out, I thought. I had to find him before it was too late. The car was a coupe, and I tried to open the door from my backseat, but all my attempts failed. Panic held me in its grip and spread through my body like blood flowing in my veins. I started to shake uncontrollably. I had never experienced anything similar before. Tears welled in my eyes and trickled down my cheeks. I cried out. My neighbour followed suit, and soon we shouted ourselves hoarse.
“Crybabies,” Dad roared as he stared at us from the other side of the window. He grinned at our lodger and laughed. He opened the door and bent inside the car. “Look at our heroes. Surely, a lot of girls will fight for them,” he said. We fell silent, ashamed of ourselves.
Fear left me in peace for twenty-two years, but then came to see me like a special friend. I lay on a dusty concrete floor in a warehouse turned into a prison camp. I trembled and whimpered as I watched and listened to prison guards torturing my neighbours for hours. I waited for my turn…
