It rained last night, making for a very muddy experience the following day. The drizzle continued throughout the day. The ground here doesn't absorb water very well, and since it's flat as a pancake, the water just collects into giant muddy puddles everywhere. What was talcum-powder-like sand yesterday is now some of the stickiest mud I've ever experienced.

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It rained last night. All indications are that we are entering the inevitable rainy season, and nobody's too thrilled about it. Last night was funny, though. I was walking back from chow, and this guy named Joe, who also works in the palace, and I were wondering at a flash of light in the sky. We were like, "What was that?" We figured it must've been a white star cluster or some type of ordnance. "Well, it couldn't be lightning," I said. "There's not a cloud in the sky," said Joe.

Not even an hour later, the skies unleashed quite the deluge of water, and the flashes of light that occurred then couldn't be taken for anything but lightning. It was miserable. By the time my teammates, Kristy and Sabah, and I returned to the tents, it was a muddy, sloppy mess. Walking the 93 steps between my tent and the toilets at 0345 was no treat, I tell you what.

The rainy season, I'm afraid, is indeed upon us. The first thing Kristy and Pauline and I did the next morning was place a mass order for some classic British wellies (mud boots). I got red, Kristy's are classic green, and Pauline's are a subdued black.

We spent the day working hard on a campaign plan, but we took time during lunch to go to the bazaar to pick up a few items. I got a bunch of Saddam Hussein paraphernalia (sp?), including this exquisite clock, "With Compliments of Military College, Republic of Iraq." Offensive? Perhaps. But I will doctor it up to make it less offensive, and I'll share the results of that in a later blog.

Gotta run. Take care, all.