Rain

It rained on Sunday, the first time in ten days. Not a hard rain, less than an inch, but it turned everything to mud. Really sticky, ball up under your boots hard to walk on mud. Everything not covered in gravel turns to mud. Little paths start to develop where four-wheel-drives vehicles can make it through. Some 4X4s are still externally engaged at the hub, that cannot be fun. We powerslide over unfinished roads like we were on New England ice. Local cars and trucks are abandoned on access ways that were passable yesterday. Footpathes through the shallow sections of mud become well traveled, marked on either side by the deep impressions of mis-steps. We do the "mud dance" to get the mud off our boots to navigate stairs or enter relatively clean buildings. The sides of vehicles are slimed and eventually cover your pants leg with streaks of mud as you climb in and out. We are issued two sets of boots, and one sits to dry out the caked mud while the other stays in play. When dry, the mud cakes then turns to dust and is easy to brush off.

I'm told that in this portion of southern Iraq, Saddam drained the marshes and channelized all the water, driving the indigenous people who lived here out. The soil here looks as though it was a lakebottom. Flat and silty. I anticipated sandy, but this soil is flood plain silt, possibly from flooding of the nearby Euphrates River. I'm told the area does flood, but not with the predictability of the Nile River. Working with flood control dams is what I do back home, and I was reminded by an email from a co-worker back home that this is where Noah built his ark. There are certainly not enough trees left here to build another.

The groundwater here is only six feet down and our elevation rarely exceeds ten feet above sea level for hundreds of square miles. The Euphrates River is hard and salty, the Tigris River to the north is sweet. Drinking water is channeled from the Tigris and there are many channels. Clean water is a valuable commodity here, like everywhere else. Bottled water is everywhere. Some Iraqis will beg for dollars or water on job sites. We respond, "Have dinars? You give me dinars, I give you dollars." which seems to stun them into laughter and defuses otherwise tense encounters. Most workers will just look at you with curiosity, and courtesy. They are gracious in their greetings, holding their right hand to their hearts, bowing their heads slightly. Not many Iraqis show up for work in the rain. The one's who do show up are huddled under something with a fire going and drying out their coats on improvised clothes lines. It's like a snow day back home.