Help us return to Petrinja, our hometown

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are from Petrinja, Croatia. 'The little town with big heart' says our local moto. We are the small family of three. My husband Kresimir, our little five year old boy Borna and me, Emilija.

I didn't wrote: We are living in Petrinja. That's because we are not. Hopefully, just for the moment. Maybe you heard of an earthquakes that hit our town on the 28th and 29th of December. Little over two weeks ago. Our little flat is 2 kilometers away from the epicenter of the Big One that hit us on the 29th. It was 6.4 by Richter scale. My little boy and I were home alone at that moment. Our flat is on the 4th floor. Luckily, Borna was standing next to me by the door as we were preparing our lunch. I had just enough time to pull him in my arms as it started to shake. And it shook. It felt like eternity. Those 25 seconds seemed like 25 minutes. I managed to kneel down under the main supportive wall holding him tightly. I just made one step to our little safe spot. If I had to do just one more, it would have thrown us on the floor. Things were flying around us. Everywhere. As if a hundreds of people were playing a dodge ball with our stuff. As we were trying to go out, I managed to look our little spot and that was the only place in whole flat where you could actually see the floor. Every single inch of our floor was filled with broken glass, food... debree in general. I remember so clearly the only thing I was thinking about during those 25 seconds. Looking at the floor and repeating in my mind: God, please, just do not let the floor colapse under us! And it didn't. It took us a while to leave our place. I had to clear the floor in order to open the other door to leave the kitchen. And again to exit the main door as wardrobe were blocking them. I do not know where did I get the strength to clear every opsticle to get out while carrying my little boy.

Now, you are probably wondering why I described so precisely the worst moments in my life. And relived them again. I wanted you to understand just a little bit why I can not go back to live in our flat. I relive that moments every day. More than once a day. At the bare thought of living there again, feels like going back to live in a prison from which I just escaped. Those concrete walls 12 meters up from the ground, feels like a tomb for me right now. Not a home.

Now, the main reason we decided to turn for help by donations is because my husband had inherrited a plot to build on. There is an old house on that plot that was devastated in the earthquake. And we are waiting for it to be demolished. For several years now (before the earthquakes), we were trying to find some way to build for us the low-!energy house but could not execute it due to enormous amounts of money all the contractors were asking. Maybe it is for the best because now we have found a type of a one floor wooden house that is earthquake safe and we would like to build it on that plot.

We were seriously considering moving out of Petrinja. Because it is, as I heard, the most likely spot for earthquakes to happen in the whole EU. But we LOVE our little town. It has been a part of us and our lives for five generations now. My little boy, if we could raise the money, will live on the ground where his greatgreatgrandfather lived. And that is sacred to my husband and to myself.

I apologize for longer text. I just wanted for all of you kind people to know that this house we want to build will be more than a home for Borna. It will be our legacy to him.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely yours,

Borna, Kresimir and Emilija Stajcar.

P.S. The picture of the house that we posted here is a two floor house and is set here just as an example of how our future house would look like from outside. All paperwork for our house is going to take a place in the future - if we collect all the money we need.