That's been fine with me; I don't mind living in less-known countries and enjoy the exotic strangeness that comes from living in obscure corners of the world. Anyone can go to Paris, but hiking in the Tien Shen mountains is something most Americans never do.
This also means that we haven't had many visitors to these places. So far my parents have come to see us at every post, but when other people ask us if they should visit, we discourage them. Most people don't have unlimited travel time and budgets (with the exception of, apparently, my parents), and both are better spent on seeing the bucket list places rather than remote corners of the former Soviet Union.
We have, however, encouraged friends and family to come and visit us in Uzbekistan. There are three major Silk Road cities here and all of them have been wonderfully restored and are easy (and cheap) to visit. The architecture is pretty breathtaking, especially when you've not been around a lot of Islamic- or Persian-style cities.
My parents visited last spring and spread the word about amazing Uzbekistan. My brother and his girlfriend were the first to ask if this spring would be a good time to come out. Good friends who are currently living in London also put in a reservation at Hotel Sherwood, coming a week and a half after my brother left. While back in the US, I talked my other brother and his wife to also come out this spring. It was going to be a fun April, finishing up the month with a visit from the mission president and an Area Authority Seventy.
Enter the coronavirus. We've been watching things unfold since late January as country after country has instituted quarantine and travel restrictions. When northern Italy shut down, Brandon and I spent one evening filling two shopping carts with extra food, just to be safe. We also put a big "maybe" over most of April and sat back to watch what would happen next.
When coronavirus made its arrival in the US, there began to be rumors of travel restrictions for Uzbekistan. No government wants to have a country-wide epidemic on its hands, so restrictions make sense. I am looking forward to when every country in the world has travel restrictions for every other country in the world.
This week the restrictions were made official, and the embassy posted guidelines on the consular page:
Travelers who have come from the U.S., regardless of their citizenship, may be subject to medical restraints (self-quarantine) if fewer than 14 days have elapsed since their last visit. Exceptions: Official and government delegations, as well as service and diplomatic passport holders, airline pilots and crew members, locomotive crews, railroad-related persons, and international truck drivers.
The same rules apply for travelers, regardless of their citizenship, coming from the People’s Republic of China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, Afghanistan, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan within the last 14 days. Travelers coming directly from the People’s Republic of China, South Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Italy, and Japan may be subject to quarantine by the Government of Uzbekistan in official locations.
- Citizens must be kept in their place of residence (house, hotel, hostel, etc.) for 14 days, not be allowed to communicate with people other than family members, and not be allowed to visit public places.
- Measures to be taken by medical personnel during the home quarantine (14 calendar days): medical examination, body temperature and blood pressure measurement, survey; medical biomaterials may be collected from the nasal-pharyngeal cavity for laboratory diagnostics and other methods as required.
- Persons with symptoms of acute respiratory infections are to be hospitalized for the purpose of diagnosis and treatment as per clinical guidelines.
- Upon completion of this self-quarantine (or after discharge from the hospital), the traveler will be interviewed by telephone by a health worker during the period of 10 days.
- Disciplinary sanctions will be imposed in the event of disciplinary violations by quarantined individuals.
And with that, the "maybe" turned into "definitely not" as my April calendar looked a lot less busy.
Thankfully, we will be here for another year and a half, so the visits got delayed and not cancelled. And since all our visitors were using international carriers instead of skinflint US carriers, they can even get refunds.
But we're still sad that our first attempt at visitors was cancelled. We were looking forward to showing off fabulous Uzbekistan while spending time with friends and family. The girls were looking forward to spending time with our friends' children. I was looking forward to the great company.
I guess everyone forgot to check the pandemic forecast when they made travel plans. Next time, we'll all remember to do so.
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