Finally: Rain!

October 09, 2004

It’s thundering.

Clouds hid the sun today for the first time in more than six months.

I’m sitting on a balcony at Forward Operating Base Gunslinger and a relatively cool breeze is picking up.

It’s hard to believe, but I think it’s going to rain!

A day doesn’t pass without someone discussing rain. There was rain envy here this summer when folks at home were fighting floods.

Rumors of a rainy season bring hope that water will again fall from the sky. The Iraqi interpreters promise that rain is coming. Winter means rain, they say.

But it’s October — which should be fall in my world — and the weather is the same as it’s been every day, give or take a few degrees, since we arrived.

See, the last time it rained was April 13.

It lasted about 10 minutes and managed to do little more than transform the powdery dirt into gooey mud and stain our clothes.

Most of us have forgotten most of that, though.

We just want a cool, clean rain.

The sky just rumbled again.

The men of 3rd Battalion gather on the roof and balconies, looking to the sky and feeling the breeze. Someone just said they saw a flash of lightning.

We see a lot of flashes in the sky here. Usually they’re just explosions or the glow of a tracer bullet.

The palm tree fronds are waving in the wind.

But so far, no rain.

I just heard a rolling rumble this time.

Bombs don’t rumble, neither do guns. This is definitely thunder.

I can smell the rain in the air. It’s raining somewhere nearby.

But I can see the sun trying to poke out of the clouds to the northwest for the first time today. The sun will set within two hours. In the meantime, it’s trying its darndest to burn off the pending rainstorm.

Is that a raindrop that just fell on my right arm?

I ran downstairs to spread the word of rain.

Lt. Keith Wilson of Sherwood, personnel officer for 3rd Battalion, didn’t believe me.

We walked to the front porch together and there it was, rain.

It wasn’t a heavy rain, merely a sprinkle, but it was perfect.

Little Midnight, a black and white puppy that lives in the motorpool, ran in circles, letting the droplets splash her face.

Midnight doesn’t get up from the pile of sand she’s made a bed out of for anything short of food. She lies there through the heat of the day.

Her running in a spastic circle is the most movement I’ve seen the pup do in weeks.

Guys got out their cameras and took pictures of the rain as it fell. We all just watched the sky in awe.

It inspired me.

I stood out in it, until, five minutes after the shower started, it stopped.

As the sun fell, flashes of lightning and rumbling thunder continued. We’d have two more little showers before the night was through.

It wasn’t even enough to make mud.

But it counts, according to the motorpool crowd.

It counts because it rained enough to wet the pavement, leaving dry spots where the humvees had been parked.

Maybe we’ll get more tomorrow.

Posted by Amy at October 9, 2004 03:22 PM