Time With Misha

Looking a bit puzzled at the two questions I had handed her, she said that she had a hard time reading them.

“I am Ukrainian”, she said with a smile, “but I can still speak English”.

She introduced herself as Lina and said that the boy across from her was Misha, for whom she was a nanny.

With the help of Misha translating here and there, Lina told me that she had left Ukraine about 7 years ago with the conflict in Russia rising and that she’d been Misha’s nanny for 6 years.

Mentioning that she was a principal at a school in Ukraine before leaving the country, Lina showed me a tragic video of her school having been recently destroyed by the Russian bombings.

While the conflict with Russia was a large factor in her leaving, she said that her daughter had also been working in the US as a lawyer. 

Meet Lina

What brings her joy?

Lina didn’t even have to think about what her source of joy was, because it was sitting across from her drinking lemonade.

She said that she absolutely loved being Misha’s nanny and taking him to places such as the zoo or museums.

Lina also told me that Misha’s mother was Russian, so he spoke Ukrainian, Russian, and English.

They had spent most days together, and Lina just loved seeing him grow up, which I found to be awesome.