SLOVENIA'S 5 CORE VALUES

I was surprised to learn that only a few of us grew up with grandparents and other relatives. Most of us spent the whole holidays wandering the streets around home. They played ball or other simple children's games with other children.

I listened to them and in my memory I was already walking along the forest path; from the railway station in Mirna, past the cemetery and the clear spring at the beginning of the village, to my grandfather's last house. We always stopped at the well first, took a drink and a rest, and then we went home. We said, »Let's go home«, because we really felt at home in that little village.

Memories came back to life and my mind wandered back to those times when there was no water or electricity in the houses. Back then, families would spend their evenings praying, reading or telling stories. It was the same here.

»Probably my grandfather told the story most often,« said Toni, knowing his grandfather.

»It's true. My grandfather was in the First and Second World Wars. He told me. They were well armed and had two cannons. The soldiers were firing all over the place. Grenades were flying over us and around us. Suddenly, a grenade flew over my head and lodged in the ground near me. At that moment I threw myself on the ground and screamed.’

,’Did she help?' we all cried out, frightened children.

Ata continued: ‘The moments of tension were filled with fear and despair, but after a while joy and gratitude. The grenade did not explode and we all said with one voice: ’Thank you, Mary, for our lives.'

We children listened so intently to our old father that we didn't even dare to breathe. When Aunt Slava got up and went into the kitchen, we children jumped off the warm stove. We knew she was going to get supper.«

»I guess you were hungry,« smiled Nace.

»Yes, we really were. There was a tempting smell coming from the kitchen as my aunt put a ladle full of baked porridge on the table; the kind with the browned, overheated cream on top. It was so good that the children ended up licking the last grains. The smell and taste have remained etched in my brain to this day.«

Those evenings have remained an unforgettable memory for me. At that time, we all felt that we belonged to this family, to this community living under one roof. We felt respect for the elderly and we knew that, despite our poverty, we were doing well. Maybe it was also because we knew how to help each other and do things that we were not used to doing. This family togetherness and the coexistence of the elderly, the middle generation and the children has probably marked me for life and left me with priceless memories. Of my aunts and uncles, of life in the village, of poverty and the intangible cultural heritage of that post-war era.

Darinka Kobal, 19. 1. 2026