it's raining tonight. i can remember how excited i felt my second or third day back here in october when there was just the lightest misting for about 5 minutes. it all evaporated within the hour, but it was rain. after a summer that was so miserable and dry! this last month there has been a fair bit of rain. no monsoons like back home, but a solid rain for several hours at different points. enough that some people hate it, and complain constantly. they hate walking in it to the showers or latrines, they hate the mud, they hate running in it, blah-blah-blah.

not me, i still love it. there was a point this summer (several actually) where it was so hot that our vehicles were overheating. what do you do when a vehicle starts overheating? that's right.... you turn on the heat. over a 140 degrees, us sweating to death in all that body armor that they want to keep lumping on us, buttoned up tight in our armored vehicles... it's amazing we didn't drown in pools of our own sweat. it was so hot, you had to wear gloves to keep from burning yourself when you touched any metal, in or out of the vehicle. on guy put his water on the transmission housing. went to pick it up later and burned himself. tiny blister on his hand, and burned his mouth. so do i love the cool, refreshing rain? uh-huh. give me more please...