Elena’s houtkachel

Weinig mensen weten dat mijn dagen 30 uren tellen. Daar komt bij dat ik me 15% sneller beweeg dan de gemiddelde Belg door een constante inname van vitamine C. U kan de rekensom maken: ik heb tijd teveel. Om eenzame winternachten door te komen, lees ik vaak mijn spambox. Ik heb dat geleerd van Mario Klingemann. Ik kwam net deze brief tegen, die onterecht als ongewenst werd gemarkeerd:

My name is Elena, me is writing to you from our city library. I founded a few some adresses to ask for help. We live in a little Russian city. My husband left me with my little daughter. Recent I lost my work and can not pay to heat our home anymore.

Now we live with my mother. We urgently need heating, because winter is coming and the temperature in our house is very cold. To do this we need a portable wood-burning furnace, but we can not buy it because it costs too much for our family.

If you have old portable wood-burning furnace which heating with burning wood, I pray you can gift to us and send to our address. I await your response.

Mijn hart gaat uit naar de arme Elena, hoewel het haar man siert dat hij de dochter heeft meegenomen: da’s al een zorg minder.

Dear Elena,

I feel sorry for you! Your story touched my heart.

Are you sure you need a portable wood stove though? In my experience, portable is usually more expensive. I buy a new laptop every 2 years and it’s much more expensive than my desktop computers.

I’m very happy to see you’re not trying to just find a husband in Belgium, but merely a stove. This is very humble of you. However: I am a just small freelancer, the government is plucking me bald. Do you have a PayPal account where I can make a small donation? Or have you tried any of the crowdsourcing projects that do fundraising? Social Media offer many opportunities to people with a nice project.

I hope my answer has warmed your heart if not your fingers.

Sander from Belgium.

Foto: “Snow Day” van LensCrack.