Visit the only country with "love" in the name for a chance to taste sweet pastries and see a human fish.

Mary Sobocan, 72, was born in Slovenija and has returned to visit her home country 12 times since 1958 when she and her family first immigrated to Canada. Sobocan was 10-years-old at the time.

"As a child, you don't really remember that much, but the love of my grandparents, and we lived in a beautiful town," she responded when asked about her childhood memories. "I was probably only around six years old when I took cows to pasture by the Hungarian border."

Hungary, Austria, Croatia, and Italy all border the country. "It was kind of exciting to be living there as a child because it was beautiful," shared Sobocan, who still speaks fluent Slovenian to this day.

The Second World War and the Hungarian Revolution

Slovenija was also a dangerous place to live during Sobocan's early years, due to the outbreak of the Second World War.

"I remember my mom telling me that she was digging ditches... and my dad was in the army and he didn't come home until I was about eight-months-old, I didn't see my dad until then," Sobocan remembers.

Slovenija, due to its prime geography in the middle of the chaos, was used frequently for soldiers and individuals to pass through from country to country during the war.

Sobocan lived so close to the borders of Hungary and Austria that she and her family could walk there, an ability that proved useful when Hungary was attacked by Russia during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956.

"We did walk to Austria when we escaped... because if you were caught at the border you'd get shot and killed," Sobocan said. She remembers being sent as a young girl to the store to purchase a large quantity of hot paprika, something the shop owner found extremely suspicious. Her mother, she says, had told her it was needed to make head cheese.

Later, her parents dressed herself and her siblings in many layers of clothing each and they set out to walk to the Austrian border, though Sobocan did not know yet that this was their escape.

"Dad would put the paprika around us so the [soldier's] dogs wouldn't be able to sniff a human," she explained. After doing so, her father would venture out ahead of them to scout their path and monitor the patrols at the border. At the time of their escape, her brother was only four-years-old.

After finally crossing into Austria, Sobocan and her family were put into a camp to wait while their backgrounds were checked and they prepared to cross by way of the ocean to Canada.

"I remember going on the boat very well to this day," says Sobocan, "and thinking, 'I will never see my grandma,' and I really cried and I never did, she died at 52."

New life in Canada

Sobocan and her family docked at Pier 21 in Halifax, and she remembers being greeted by a number of women from the Catholic Women's League (CWL) of Canada carrying sandwiches and cookies. For the past 50 years, Sobocan has been a member of the league herself.

From Halifax, Sobocan and her family took a train to Winnipeg, where her parents looked for jobs and they lived in an apartment on Higgens and Maple for several years.

"My mom and dad came with $15 in their pocket," says Sobocan. She faced bullying in school for her heritage until she transferred to Holy Ghost School, which she says was a great fit for her.

Remembering her culture

Speaking the Slovenian language has been a significant part of holding on to her culture, says Sobocan, whose parents spoke the language at home after they immigrated to Canada, and who still speaks it with her husband, who is also Slovenian, to this day. Her children continue to keep their culture alive through language, as well, understanding it fluently and speaking the basics.

Knowing, too, fun parts of her homeland is a way that Sobocan can stay in touch with her culture. "Slovenija," she says, "the only country with 'love' in the name."

She speaks as well of the human fish, named as such for its light-pink skin that resembles that of a human. The fish is known to live in the Postojna Cave, the second-largest cave system in the country and formed by the Pivka River.

Folklorama, however, is where she says she really had the opportunity to revisit her culture.

Sobocan has served as the VIP and Media Chair of the Slovenija Pavilion for many years and is excited to be returning for Folklorama's 50th year representing her home country. She was also the first woman to run the kitchen at her pavilion in her early 20s.

The pavilion was one of the original few to take part in Folklorama's inaugural year and was originally run by a priest, in keeping with the devout Catholicism consistent with Slovenija.

An ageing Slovenian population in Winnipeg has prompted the pavilion to take some years off here and there, but also to ensure that their pavilion continues on, in spite of age, to see that the younger generation of Slovenians can experience and learn their culture in a personal way.

Visit the Slovenija Pavilion during the first week of Folklorama, from Sunday, August 4 to Saturday, August 10, at the Bronx Community Centre (720 Henderson Hwy.)