The Amazing Desert!

Thinking of Iraqi, I, like most people do, thought it is one big desert. To my chagrin, I have found out otherwise. Today I woke up to rain that had continued from the night before (actually the day before) and the consequences of all this rain is huge puddles of water everywhere. I dug out my overboots, slipped them on and ventured out to work. Only I found out that work today was canceled because vehicles were getting stuck and also of the risk to people (falling off vehicles, trying to get un-stuck the vehicles in the mud. The only people out and about are those who actually need to be. So today I watch a DVD and took a nap, watched the rain come down and down and down. Worked on my vehicle some, wrote up some of its problems to be fixed and watched the rain come down and down and down.
The other day I went out of the wire on a mission. This is what I saw. Along one stretch of road is a huge garbage dump-like in the past when Americans just dumped their garbage on top of the ground and set it on fire---that is what happens here. So I am looking out the window at acres and acres of garbage when I notice an odd clump of garbage--and I figure out that it is not a pile of garbage, but someone's home! Made from things cast off. Then I see a boy herding goats among the garbage and then there is a herd of cattle grazing in the garbage.
This is Iraq.
One street the house look very nice, then next you are reminded you are in a war zone. You pass cars zooming up and down the roads, just like back home and then you see the black crater left from an ied. ... and you remember where you are...
I was told there were things I wouldn't forget, and they were correct---the smell and the trash.
But they didn't tell me about the rain! So now I have three things to remember, the smell of Iraq, the trash of Iraq and the rain!