I Believe They Call It Rain

It rained today. The last time we saw rain here was in April and we hadn't seen a cloud in the sky since. It is actually comforting to see the lightning and feel the thunder; it brings hope that this place is not as desolate as it seems. Although I welcome the rain, I know what inevitably follows. Water plus sand and dirt equals mud, and I'm talking about mud that is thick enough to build walls out of. We trade the hot and dry for the muddy and humid days, I 'm not sure which is better. This is a turning point however, because this means we are hitting the wintery rainy season and we are over halfway home.

I have been having quite a bit of fun lately with one of my new books I ordered, the Iraqi phrasebook. Although it is pre-war written it has many useful phrases in it, however, it is the rest that are a lot of fun. "I want to visit Baghdad, where can I buy a bus ticket?", I say to a little boy in my best Arabic. He laughs and then I come back with another one, "I got hit by a car, my arm is broken!". Although the children are usually confused by what I say, the adults seem to get my humor and amuse me by correcting my horrible pronunciation. Because the book is written in phonetic Arabic you would think that you could just read the guide and pronounciate the words but that is not how it works in this language. If you say just one part of a word wrong, or emphasize the wrong part, it can take on a whole different meaning.

Sean has come down from where he has been up north training the Iraqi army on medical classes. He's only here for a couple days but it's good to see him and he seems to be doing well. He reports that the Iraqi soldiers are actually quite proficient at their jobs, well at least in regards to their medical capabilities and training them has been quite interesting. He should be returning here for the rest of the tour by the end of the month.

Our air conditioner has been on the fritz again lately making plenty of strange and sometimes loud noises. Soon enough though we probably won't need it as the temperatures during the day are slowly dropping as we hit the winter season. Cross you fingers, we don't need it to blow up or start on fire again (kidding about the fire, but it did blow up that one time).

Time to go to work. Valete.

Trudging through time,
Nick