In the same week that we learned of our extension, Camp Taji experienced a flash flood. The rain was supposed to end with February. We were supposed to fly home in June.

But, things never work out as planned here in Iraq.

After months of slogging through wet clay and impossibly deep puddles until my boots were crusted over and cracked from half a dozen layers of mud in various stages of dryness, the interpreters had assured me at the beginning of March Iraq's infamous rainy season was over. As such, I packed away my wet-weather gear in the duffel bag that now gives support to my sagging bed frame. I slipped on a fresh pair of boots and threw out the old, intent on keeping this pair clean and dry at all costs. I was mentally prepared for the summer, anxious for a return to glory for the blazing sun even if that meant enduring a misery of the opposite extreme.

Imagine my surprise when I woke April 10 to the sound of hail clattering against the tin roof of my housing unit. Still placing stock in the truth of the interpreters' observations as amateur meteorologists - still hoping I was dreaming or hallucinating, and I still had yet to wake to a Disney morning - I shuffled to my door and opened it to greet a sky so leaden with clouds of a sickly orange-red color, I was convinced Iraq would make a deceptive double for Mars if we needed to fake the next space-travel milestone.

So I waited.

I waited for the hail and the torrent of acid rain to pass. I waited for a lull during which I would set off on my half-mile journey to our command post, and when the cacophony diffused to a pleasant and promising silence, I proceeded to speed-walk the mile to work, hoping I would make it before the storm picked back up.

I didn't.

Instead, when I was only 50 yards away from my housing unit, I encountered rains unlike anything I'd ever experienced in Hawaii, Oregon or Washington. This was the kind of rain about which native-born Southern Californians like me had nightmares before we woke to our pleasant, sunny mornings. This was the kind of rain that falls too fast for the human eye to register as it splashes in the endless puddles, giving Iraq the appearance of a sped-up film.

While on the slow, trudging walk to work, I considered the coming summer I wasn't scheduled to spend here. It's going to be long, hot, and a turning point in both the war and the history of the world at large. Given that the majority of Americans, citizens or politicians, are signaling to Iraq that our time here is limited, it's make-or-break time for this repairing country.

The interpreters were surprised by this April storm, but they didn't experience the kind of shock I did. They barely shrugged when they gazed out on a sea of puddles shored by a reef of clinging, heavy mud. What the late Kurt Vonnegut wrote about humanity's capacity for monstrosity could be extended to Iraq's tempestuous, unpredictable climate: “So it goes.”

Later that day, I returned to my room, unpacked my duffel bag and removed my poncho, my plastic jacket, my plastic pants and my rubber overboots. Dressed from head to toe in waterproof clothes, I was ready to face the rain, and just as I prepared to leave, the storm stopped. There was silence, and the clouds parted just enough to leak hot sunlight through.

And for the rest of the day, I was broiling in wet-weather gear layered over half-dry clothes, and kicking myself for assuming anything was predictable about Iraq or my experience here.

I was supposed to leave after 12 months, in June; I'll be leaving in October. Iraq was supposed to dry in March; more than two weeks after April's flash flood, it's still impossibly muddy in parts of Camp Taji.

So it goes.

(U.S. Army Spc. Sean Hanson is stationed in Baghdad, Iraq. He worked for The World for two summers, while attending Southwestern Oregon Community College and studying journalism. He can be contacted at seanhanson@gmail.com.)