Tag #127638 - Interview #78077 (Adela Hinkova)

After my father’s death we came to Sofia, and my mother sold everything, even our water pump. It was very hard for me after my father died. I loved him very much. And we didn’t have any money, not even my brother. There was help from nowhere. We sold everything we had: clothes, the sewing machine, whatever dowry we had. I didn’t even have money to pay for my diploma. My sister Zhaneta gave me money for that and that’s how I graduated. We rented a room. I applied for a job. I worked in an attorney’s office for a whole year. I still have some knowledge in this field. He was dealing with claims against people in debt and I assisted him with the accountants.

This was an insurance company named OREL, which is still in that same building, it was then outside the town. I walked on foot for two hours to get to work. It was very cold. I arrived at work freezing, wanted to drink some tea, but my boss was looking at the clock. My salary was 2,000 levs, and a bottle of vegetable oil was worth 1,000 levs. We lived in the house of good people, but we had no money. After some time I found out that my mother went to various houses to do the washing so that we had enough bread. Our bread was a bit sour, made of maize and something else. When we cut it, it stuck to the knife, but I had to eat it, because I was working. It was a very hard year.