And so the saga begins...

In case you haven't already heard, I am, quite sadly, not in the Turk. After getting to Philly to meet all of my amazing fellow-PCVs, and after dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's of a gazillion forms, we all introduced ourselves to one another, saying something we had learned about Turkmenistan. We laughed and poked fun at , well, let's just say, the "interesting" facts-of-life in the Turk: a banningon recorded music, opera, ballet; the recently deceased president naming the months after his wives; the existence of an official melon day b/c the aforementioned president loved melons so much; replacing doctors and nurses with unqualified military conscripts b/c the same guy liked to have total military control over everything, in effect making it illegal to ban communicable diseases like HIV, etc...you get the picture.

So we all have a good chuckle. Then the Director of the Peace Corps for Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Asia introduces himself. As Mr. Ferrell would say, he's kind of a big deal. We were so honored to have him come and speak to us.

Until he opened his mouth. Apparently, earlier that morning, the government of Turkmenistan sent an email to the U.S. PC office in Washington saying that they were welcoming PCVs for 2010. Washington thought it was a typo, so our country director called.

It wasn't a typo.

Apparently, THAT MORNING, it was decided (or at least we Americans were told) that we were no longer welcome in Turkmenistan, even after we had all been issued visas the week prior. It's currently 2 weeks post-rejection, and no one in the Peace Corps has any idea why the Turkmen government decided this. Everyone was (and still is) just flabbergasted. 

Through the grapevine, we heard that it was politics as usual.  This article discusses the Turkmen government preventing its students from returning to their studies at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Apparently, their government was peeved that U.S. officials intervened, so they decided to bar Peace Corps volunteers from entering Turkmenistan.

Talk about middle-school drama.

Even the New York Times posted an article about us.

So, to put it plainly, I got screwed by Turkmenistan. Now that's a real life FML. So the next time you get dumped by someone, and the mention of that special someone's name makes you cry on command as you devour that gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream, just remember: I got dumped. By a country. Beat that.