Iraq is a Quagmire

A Journal Entry

Now, before you Blue-State-types get too excited by that title, you should probably read the rest of this entry. I'm not talking about some vast, geopolitical concept, nor is it some reference to Vietnam. It's simply a statement of the way things are right now: and after an inch of rain yesterday, this place is a quagmire.

There's mud everywhere, and big puddles in between the mud-bridges, thus proving it's not totally flat here. But, true to form, everyone with some time pulled together and scrounged up some old "floor boards" and wooden palettes, creating boardwalks across the most extreme and most well-travelled bogs. So, now, walking back from the shower no longer requires walking through big puddles of mud, which is generally a good thing. With a little hard work and ingenuity, the quagmires of mud and water are no longer a factor to every day life.

It's cold, and getting colder. It's not freezing, but it's certainly not balmy, vacation-destination weather, either. The wind was ridiculous yesterday - some reports were of 40mph steady-state winds. I suppose my earlier comparisons to Kansas weren't that far off. But the cold weather is also good - with as much standing water there is around here, a warm spring day would make this a miserably humid breeding ground for mosquitos. It's not that time of year yet, thankfully.