American Writer Sara Paretsky shares her cousin’s story about Crimea

For the last two weeks—ever since the Crimean crisis began—I get up in the morning in my home in America, turn on the computer to check my news sources in Ukraine, and then call “my family” in Crimea. From 2009 to August of 2013, I lived and worked in the Crimean Tatar community in Simferopol and have maintained close contacts with the people there and visited them often from my new Peace Corps assignment in Kyiv. When the Peace Corps evacuated all Volunteers from Ukraine the weekend of Feb. 23rd, I was hesitant to leave without having the chance to say goodbye to my family in Crimea, but we talked on the phone, and I reassured them I would be back sometime soon.