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Åsa has lived in Norway for 23 years, but when the crown pandemic hit, it was as if all time had disappeared.
She believes that the Norwegians see her as a “super spreader”, even though she barely set foot in Sweden in six months.
– I have never felt less comfortable in the country I call home. It will be difficult for me to forgive Norway for that, he says.
Åsa Weiland, 53, stopped talking at the supermarket.
His Swedish makes people look suspicious, move, and ask if he’s been to Sweden recently.
– I was made responsible for Sweden’s strategy and why so many die there. I think it sucks, that it is constantly suspected.
He has lived in Oslo for 23 years and has felt right at home. But since the day Sweden and Norway chose two different paths in the crown crisis, it has strayed further from its Norwegian peers.
– Suddenly I felt that those 23 years were no longer counted, they all disappeared in March.
Did not urinate in red areas
Norwegians are allowed to travel to different areas of Sweden depending on the extent of the spread of the infection. If the area is “red” you have to be quarantined for ten days when you return, but if it is yellow you can go there.
When Skåne was “yellow”, Åsa got in the car to drive and visit her 81-year-old father in the small fishing village of Abbekås in southern Skåne.
– I peed at the Norwegian border, and then stayed all the way to Skåne, just to make sure I didn’t set foot in a red zone. Then I met my dad and went home, but it was like he brought the plague back.
Åsa is disappointed because she thinks she has given Norway so much over the years, especially through her profession as a nurse. But Norway has given him a lot. It was love that got her there in the late 90s, and now she has two children and a good workplace that keeps her moving. During that time, he has worked hard to try to fit in and feel at home.
And although it has been difficult before, spring has been something completely new. People have been aggressive and pounced on her.
– Then I felt: what the hell are they doing with me? And what do you know about the responsibility I take?
I can’t forgive Norway
She is not the only one feeling vulnerable. It was when her friend shared a post on Facebook that she got angry. Not just because she, along with so many others, feels left out, but also because she thinks it’s the wrong way to be right now.
– I cannot understand that when we face such a pandemic disaster, we are together so little. That divides more than it unites.
Brothers Norway and Sweden have always competed with each other, in everything from cross-country skiing to who the “little brother” really is.
– But what we’re competing for now is the one with the fewest deaths, and he’s so sick that I don’t know what to say.
He points out that the pandemic has many worse things. Everyone who loses someone they love, the work of a lifetime being destroyed, and the mental illness that people can no longer be close to each other in the same way.
But interpersonal contacts and trust in their Nordic neighbors will be difficult to repair, he says.
– I have never felt less comfortable in the country I call home. It will be difficult for me to forgive Norway for that.
PODD Continent Corona Report
Aftonbladet Daily talks to Benjamin Ekroth in Berlin and Frida Fagerlund in London.
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