A Correction for the Record

Yesterday, I was really getting the itch to get out and take care of most of the loose ends I still had before I left next week. I studied on Rosetta Stone for almost three hours, ran all over town buying nearly everything I still needed, and then finally rounded out the day with a nice dinner with my parents. Upon getting home, I swung on over to my computer and then facebook where I saw one girl who I was supposed to go to Mauritania had posted her status as "really, REALLY wasn't supposed to go to Mauritania in june... too bad for the future PCVs!" I assumed that something had happened with her and she canceled. Then I scrolled down on my screen and saw that at least half a dozen other people had similar messages up. Insert me freaking out.

I checked my phone and I had no missed calls. I ran next door to my parents' house and we had no messages. My dad did have a missed call from a DC area code on his cell phone but they hadn't left a message. Franticly, I began scouring the internet for who to call and I must have tried two dozen numbers before somebody on facebook gave me the numbers for our regional desk directors in DC, where I then left messages.

And I just got off the phone with the regional desk director this morning and apparently the RIM government hasn't issued our visas. I guess it's not that they denied our visa requests but that they aren't issuing them now and we can only hope that they will after the elections. It probably has something to do with the elections being postponed until July. I was initially excited when I heard there was an agreement for an end to the political crisis in Mauritania that postponed the elections. Furthermore, I was even more excited to BE there when the elections were happening. Now, however, the delay looks to be the reason we can't get visas. We're hoping on a mid-August departure but at this point, I'm wondering if we'll ever get off the ground.