FALL RIVER:<\/strong> Two Ukrainian girls who are living with a host family in Fall River are adjusting to their new home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anna Yeriiheva and Inna Klymenko are living with Cindy and Ryan Duggan at their home in the Schwarzwald subdivision since they arrived almost three months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two sat down and spoke to The Laker News about being welcomed and feeling like they have a host mom and dad since their arrival. While Inna doesn\u2019t speak much English currently, she\u2019s working on it and Anna does speak some English, but Cindy was there to help with the interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery time the people ask about our host family, I say \u201cthis is my host mom.\u201d They’re very friendly. I would like to try and do something to be friendly to for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”31″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”7″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two do say life is very different here then in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople here are more chill or more friendly actually,\u201d said Anna, \u201cin Ukraine, people are more tense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anna, who has her Veterinary medicine degree and would like to find work in that field hopefully locally, said people in N.S. don\u2019t seem to rush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople here just live their life, and don\u2019t worry so that is different,\u201d she said, with Inna nodding in agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inna is a professional violinist and wants to teach children how to play music. She has already played several concerts locally since her arrival, and previously toured with the Ukrainian Orchestra across Europe prior to the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She has a concert at Public Gardens in Halifax scheduled for July 28, and will be playing locally in Waverley on the Village Green on August 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe wants to teach them how to like music, to play, to understand music,\u201d said Anna. \u201cShe\u2019s hoping to find work as a music teacher. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”72″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”95″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n It took reassurance from her boyfriend for Anna to know she should leave Ukraine and her family for safety in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt first time, when I think that I can leave, I don’t think that I want to leave,\u201d recalled Anna. \u201cMy boyfriend say, \u201cyou need to go because I feel bad if you stay here.\u201d My mom didn’t want me to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anna said there were plenty of tears as she battled with the decision, which took about a week to make. She initially lived in Berlin before coming to Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI cried a lot. Because I just had build my own apartment, my own family, and my career there,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s hard to go in another country without language, without options. It’s really hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut they (my mom and boyfriend) say like, you need to go because we don’t have choice and you don’t have choice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”34″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”6″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inna sent her a link to the Canadian government website, saying the two could try to find a family to live here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI thought about it for a week. It took time because it\u2019s another continent, another country and so far from home. But I knew it was an option and mom said she believed in me and to just go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cindy said she found them through a post on a Facebook page from Anna. Her family has enjoyed the two living with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe love having them here,\u201d she said. \u201cI think they’ve started to become a part of our family when they’re not around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy three-year-old son asks where they are and immediately if they leave the room, he asks where they went and when they’re coming back. If I drop them off somewhere, he gets really upset because they’re not coming back with us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But of course they have to have their own lives and we just enjoy having them here and knowing that we have the ability to make an impact in these two girls lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”123″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”92″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said it\u2019s been rewarding to be able to open their home to the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you open your home to allow people to come in and something that may seem as simple as that to us as Canadians, it makes such a huge difference in these girls lives,\u201d said Cindy. \u201cI can’t imagine how they would have been able to do re-establish themselves somewhere else if they didn’t have just somebody to help guide them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s not just about having a place to live. It’s also like having to navigate our systems and things that we understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”25″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”84″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cindy learned about a Ukrainian Facebook page about hosting refugees from her best friend Heather (who happened to be at her place and just leaving when The Laker News arrived on a nice sunny night).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMe and Ryan (my husband) spent some time talking about it and he seemed open minded, and supportive. I invited him to the group so he could see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen the girls made their post, they talked about how they had been best friends for 10 years and decided to travel here together to support one another. It reminded me so much of Heather and myself. Her and I were inseparable at that age as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said Anna and Inna\u2019s post is what sold her on wanting to host them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI read their story and that was it,\u201d Cindy said. \u201cI sent in a message, and she wrote me back right away. Through conversation, we connected because she was comfortable with us, and we were with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think we hit it off right away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”150″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”105″}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [adrotate banner=”127″] [adrotate banner=”93″] MAIN PHOTO: Anna (left) and Inna (right), from Ukraine, with host mom Cindy at their Schwarzwald subdivision home. (Healey photo) FALL RIVER: Two Ukrainian girls who are living with a host family in Fall River are adjusting to their new home. Anna Yeriiheva and Inna Klymenko are living with Cindy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,957],"tags":[3958,3959,2,50,3960,48,3528,3320,3961],"class_list":["post-30086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","tag-anna-yeriiheva","tag-cindy-duggan","tag-fall-river","tag-halifax","tag-inna-klymenko","tag-n-s","tag-refugees","tag-ukraine","tag-war-with-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/IMG_5549-683x1024.jpg\")
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