Yesterday I gave blood for the first time ever! Vishnu and I both did because 2 people had to donate blood for Mr. Yan (man in hospital from the village) to have his surgery yesterday. It was quite an experience, for a couple reasons. One, I'm in a really poor country (no worries, needle was new and everything was clean). Second, after giving blood, we were moved to a room where we could have refreshments and make sure we were okay to leave. Once we got in the room we both sat down and I started feeling really light headed. I looked over and asked Vishnu if she was okay and she simply said "no" and 2 seconds later passed out, fell on the ground and started twitching. It was the weirdest experience because I'm sitting there with my head on the table, on the verge of passing out myself, as I watch her having what looks like a mild seizure and people crowded around her. In many countries you have to be a certain height, weight, etc to donate, but here they don't take those precautions (they still test for diseases and things don't worry). Vishnu is 4 feet 11 inches tall and 105 pounds. Clearly she should have given less blood than someone my size. Anyway, she woke up, I didn't pass out, and Mr. Yan had his surgery. =)

We met with SISHA again last week and they plan to take a few days next week and go to the village (and a couple of surrounding villages) with Khmer staff to earn the villager's trust and find more cases of missing girls/boys. They've told us we are welcome to ride with them if they have room. That would be awesome. I would love to see how a big NGO like SISHA works here.

We are for sure going to the village on Thursday, though. We are going with our boss at CIACC, Mam Sitha, to hire workers for the house and to purchase timber! Finally!!! We have the house plans drawn up and this project is starting to speed up.

Life here is going reallyyyyy well. The people (locals) here never stop amazing me. Some volunteers I'm not so sure how I feel about. But, I won't get into that =P

Alright. I hope everyone is having a great week!