Like I said, once the rain came, it came in torrents. The ground became muck and before long everything was the same ruddy brown color. I’d heard about lands where there was “the rainy season” and apparently, this was it. From what I understand, the Persian Gulf (“Arabian Gulf” if you ask the Arab states) acts as a giant funnel, and monsoon rains that rage in the Indian Ocean get scooped up and “funneled” right up the Gulf and into the relative lowlands of southern Iraq. By the time they reach Baghdad, they are just heavy rains, their monsoon-level winds long since exhausted earlier, over the water.

Some say that legends of the “Garden of Eden” came from the lush green lands of southern Iraq– tales that got passed down from ancestors and achieved legendary enough status to be described in our ancient texts –even interpreted as holy by some. Could a year of crazy monsoon rains inspired stories of a great flood as well? The Engineers aren’t taking any chances.