Goodbye Ukraine?

By the first week in December 2013 was increasing tension and nobody really knew what would happen. Would the then President Yanukovych call in a Sowiet-styled military crackdown and shoot innocent protesters in the streets? I thought I better not press my luck, shooting videos in the streets without a press accreditation and not speaking any Russian / Ukrainian. About the same time, I called back to Texas and found out that my mom had broken her pelvis bone. So I made the easy decision to fly back to College Station, Texas.

When the plane took off, I felt sad for all the people in the Ukraine who couldn’t leave, even if they had wanted to. People in the Maidan Square who had sacrificed their lives, jeopardized their jobs or lost what already small comforts they did enjoy. I thought about Americans and Germans who had fought for the freedoms I now enjoyed – the freedom to flash my passport and get on an airplane without any questions asked and simply fly away. I considered how little I contributed to supporting and upholding the freedoms I valued and utilized in traveling around the world.

I flew back to Texas.

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