Accessing array from within a plguin…

Hey guys,

I have this code within my plugin:

add_action('init', 'my_country', 100);

    function my_country() {

        $country_array = array(
            'AF'=>'AFGHANISTAN',
            'AL'=>'ALBANIA',
            'DZ'=>'ALGERIA',
            ....

I want to read the array from within the my template file but nothing happens. I actually want the key value and not necessarily the name:

This code doesn’t work:

if ( function_exists ('my_country') ) {
    my_country($country_array);

    // return stuff from the array... nothing happens
    ...
}

but this works, however it does not return the array keys ??

$terms = get_the_terms($post->ID, 'my_country' );
                            if ($terms && ! is_wp_error($terms)) :
                                $term_slugs_arr = array();

                                // old array
                                foreach ($terms as $term) {
                                    $term_slugs_arr[] = $term->name;
                                }

                                $terms_slug_str = join( " ", $term_slugs_arr);
                            endif;

What could I possibly be doing wrong!?

And the other thing… everytime I disable and enable the plugin, it duplicated the taxonomies in the database, e.g. Belgium-2, Belgium3, etc.