Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the new man in my life…batoni Sergi Tsirikidze.

Alright he’s my 14 year-old host brother, but he’s still quite the guy.

Though his demeanor is widely disputed not only in the family but in the neighborhood, overall he’s a good kid.

He enjoys dancing, especially the robot which I watch from the corner of my eye in the mornings while eating my oatmeal. No matter what the time of day may be, he’ll be singing something, and one can usually tell what kind of mood he’s in by what he belts out. Dance class will in ensue shortly after I hear him regurgitate the words of the native Rachulian song, slamming the rusty iron gate behind him. School has ended and he’s heading for the computer when I hear “party rockin’ in the house tonight…” and he’s getting ready to go watch an over-dubbed Spanish telenovela when Rihanna’s “Umbrella” song comes out of his mouth, though I’m pretty sure he’s saying hola instead of “um-br-el-la”. Alright I know he’s saying hola instead of “umbrella” but I think it’s slightly adorable so I have yet to correct him. He will also whisper “everyday I’m shufflin’…” in my ear while I’m on the computer and he’s supposed to be studying. Just yesterday he picked up an MP3 player from the bazaar, so now he walks around the house with earphones hanging loosely over his shirt as I check him trying to decide if it’s cooler to clip the MP3 onto his jeans or slide it nonchalantly into his pocket.

Among other things, the boy’s got skill in getting what he wants with a few choice words and spending hours on the computer playing racing games at night. Hours later I’ll see him hobble out of bed, looking disheveled and upset that somehow he’s awake and not buried under the covers in the morning’s bleak light. This is about the time that I greet him with an English “good morning”, he smiles meekly, and then shakes a leg to the bathroom to do what I assume is hold a toothbrush under the running water and call it good.

I must admit, days would be longer without the boy filling it with anything from screams to American pop song lyrics. And sometimes when he’s hanging out in the smoke-filled living room, quieted by a full stomach, content from chocolate or on his come down from a sugar high, he’ll let me prop my head on his shoulder, put his arm around me in a brotherly fashion while asking if I love the film that’s garbled in Georgian or Russian playing on TV.

Sure, he’s a boy: he would rather be playing outside or on the computer than doing his school work, and every teenager inevitably displays a little selfish yelling and a snotty attitude toward their parents–but he’s still got a charming persona, some blatant charisma and unquestionable spunk. What more could I ask for in a quirky host brother? I think I lucked out.