Aunt from Norway

Everyone who has a bit of luck in life has at least one aunt. I have an aunt in Belgrade and I had an aunt in Chicago. My aunt in Belgrade bought me the first tangerines I ever saw in my life, for one Materice, the first gold ring when I graduated and took me by the hand from block 45 in New Belgrade all the way to Voždovac in the summer of 1989 when I took the entrance exam at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of Journalism. My aunt from Chicago bought me my first barbie (with three dresses and a hairbrush!), my first disco shoes and my first journalistic recorder, which ingloriously ended its career at the feet of the police cordon at the end of 1996, I think in Kolarčeva, but now I don't remember anymore.

photo: vesna marjanović

Everyone who is a little more lucky becomes an aunt himself at least once in his life. I am the aunt of my cousins ​​in Serbia. I am also the aunt of every child here where I live, because I am the "aunt from kindergarten" on the top of the world. Because I am an aunt far away, I could not take any of the children to whom I am an aunt by the hand, nor buy them tangerines for Materice, nor perform the patriotic duty of every aunt.

Aunts are very important beings.

Even when they are not those "aunties from Canada", who have 205 thousand euros in cash to buy their children a 107-square-meter apartment in Zvezdara. It's not aunts, it's an alibi.

An aunt is mom's or dad's sister.

"An aunt is loved without exception, there is no end and no beginning" (says an author unknown to me). Maybe that's why these weeks in various parts of the planet, wherever people and aunts have gathered to support students in Serbia, there is at least one poster that says "Because of you, I became an aunt from abroad".

There is an aunt in every corner of the world, without exception, there is no end, no beginning.

***

"Aunty, what does it (pay attention to you!) say there?" One week at the end of January in front of the parliament in Oslo, a little girl with blonde curls, maybe five or six years old, certainly of preschool age, asked me that. I see her then for the first time in my life. She totally confused me.

I was carrying a placard that said "Uncles, your aunt from Norway loves you". The letters were written with bright colorful markers and pink hearts were flying over the poster, I understand that she was interested in what was written there, but how can I explain it to her? Next to her stands another, smaller girl, looking at us with curious eyes, also waiting for my answer. I ask the older one, cautiously, if she knows who the students are; she answers decisively: "I know, these are children who go to school." I'm relieved, we've jumped over the first possible stumbling block in our important conversation. I ask her more bravely if she knows who her aunt is, she nods her head, her lips stretch into a proud smile and she adds: "That's my mother's sister, she lives in Serbia." "Well, you see, I'm also an aunt, only I live in Norway like you, but the children to whom I'm an aunt live in Serbia and I tell them here that I love them." Her mom is standing to the side, listening to our conversation and smiling. "Both were born here. Can we borrow a poster so I can take a picture of the two of them and send it to my aunt in Serbia?" I can, I say, and my heart is a little warm that I didn't even try to explain to them who the "uncles" are. I hope they never find out.

This all happened at a meeting in Oslo, from which citizens, aunts and children living in Norway sent a message of support to citizens, aunts and children in Serbia. After 15 minutes of silence at 15.15, which was broken only by the cries of seagulls, I saw many girls and boys singing "the bumblebee swore to the flower and honey..." and one boy with a blue cap squatting and drawing a fist on the asphalt with red chalk.

***

I don't know what the population density is in other parts of the world, but I responsibly claim that there are many aunts living on the top of the world. It took them three days to gather people in Oslo and I have never met so many aunties in one place. Apart from that, they lie to you that the aunts have no money, although there are few of them who could buy you an apartment on Zvezdara. The aunts have already collected money several times through the application called spleis (in our language something like "cinch up"). Every aunt who traveled from here to Serbia in the last couple of months "spliced", even if only a little, and spent her "ferie" (Norwegian: vacation) driving from college to college in Belgrade, Niš, Kragujevac in a car loaded with food, water, and mattresses. All aunties in this world are engaged in conspiratorial business, you know that from the first.

Although, there was also an "uncle" at one of those actions, and he signed up anonymously, as: "We who are with the governments of Serbia and Vucic!". In order to be able to teach the aunts a lesson, he first had to pay some money for the splice, such are the rules, pay, then slaughter. He paid 5 Norwegian kroner, which is probably the smallest amount possible, just to tell his aunts: "Well done! You are collecting money for the 'students', that is, the opposition... who drag minors to these blockades, well done diaspora! For students who don't know why they are on the street!" (all that, some even guaranteed). The aunts returned his money and reported that they were blocking his access. You see, aunties can block too.