My Wonderful Host Family

I was assigned a lovely host family to live with during my stay in Ternopil. Their last name is Muriy, and they are a great family.

“Mama Ola” is my host mother. She is a voice teacher at the university. She is very kind and warm and she is always making sure I am well taken care of. Her husband passed away a few years ago due to cancer, so she is of course now the head of the household.

Then there is Orest, my host brother. He is 22 years old and speaks perfect English, like I mentioned before. He is really cool and has been kind enough to show me around and translate between his mom, his grandma and I. He has also been great by letting me use his computer which, thank heavens, has Internet! He loves music and even does a bit of DJ’ing. Orest works as a secretary at an office, and he also teaches English to a few students. He might actually end up being my Ukrainian tutor, which would be great! He has a girlfriend named Oxana (I probably misspelled that!), but I have not had the chance to meet her yet. She sounds like a lovely girl though!

Then there is Krystina, my host sister. I am not sure how old she is but I think she is only a few years younger than Orest and I. She is also very nice and her English is not bad, so she has also been really great helping me communicate and learn a bit of Ukrainian vocabulary.

Finally, there is Orest’s grandma… She is the cutest little old lady ever! She speaks to me in Ukrainian ALL the time, even though she knows I can’t understand a word she is saying! Hahahaha. I am supposed to call her “BahBah”, but I am having a hard time with that since all I can think of when I hear “BahBah” is of BahBah Shrimp from the movie Forrest Gump! Hahahaha. Well, BahBah is always offering me “chai” (tea) and things to eat, and making sure I am comfortable (I can tell this only from her body language at this point, haha).

Two funny things have happened with BahBah. First, since I was left alone with her all day the day before yesterday and we could not communicate very well, I went upstairs to the computer and wrote her a few brief paragraphs in English, then translated them to Ukrainian using one of those online automatic translators. I am very much aware of the fact that those translators translate things literally and that can be problematic, but in my case I had no other choice, haha. What took forever was to copy down into paper the translated paragraphs, since my brain is not yet used to the Cyrillic alphabet. However, I could not simply ask BahBah to come upstairs to read the computer, since the stairs are rather narrow and dangerous and I don’t know whether she could climb them. Anyway, in the message simply thanked her for her hospitality and told her I was sorry I could not communicate with her in a better way, but that for the time being I would use the computer as my translator. I also told her that if there was anything I could help her with, that she should let me know. Well, when I gave her the letter, she was so surprised and happy that she stood up and gave me a huge hug!! Hahahahaha! :D

Then, yesterday she looked at me kind of weird because I was wearing a skirt below my knees, and she clearly appeared to think I was going to be cold. So she motioned what I thought meant that I should put on a sweater, so obediently I went to my room to change into pants and bundle up (even though I was not actually going out), but then she came into the room with a fuzzy purple sweater and put it on me! Hahahaha. That was fantastic, hehehe!

When I told Orest about it he was very surprised. Apparently his grandma is not usually very comfortable with girls, especially if they are strangers. He also said that it seems like I brought up BahBah’s mood, since she invited in a friend, which she had not done in a long time. He was actually happy about it, and it made me feel good.

The family also has a cat. I don’t know what its name is, but it is the funniest little fluffy cat ever. She is the size of a 1 year old kitten, but she is actually an adult. She has black-and-rusty fluffy and messy fur, and her tail is huge and very fluffy as well. She makes me think that she is a little gypsy cat, hahaha (in the best sense of the word). I love her!

I think that is all I want to say about the family for now. Next, I will turn to the actual house in my next post.