Ok, fine.

I've been pestered for a new blog post for a while now, so I'm going to try. The problem is that the longer I wait, the more there is to write about! But some of you are very persistent, so I'll give you a brief summary of the events that transpired since my last post.

Two weekends ago, we (Andrea, Jeff, Jen, and I) went to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary. This is the most bizarre zoo I've ever been to, for several reasons.
1. 18-year-old boys with coconuts strapped to their bikes follow you around. Every time they throw a coconut to an animal (ie. a bear), you have to pay for it after watching the animal consume the fruit.
2. Some of the wildlife (namely about a million monkeys) are not caged.
3. Those animals that are caged seem a little bit too close for comfort.

4. There is no female leopard yet, so the male leopards are a little bit too intimate. The management is looking for a female, so maybe there's hope.

5. When you get hungry and stop for lunch, the only option is a whole chicken (fried, grilled, or roasted--your choice). It was tasty, but a bit difficult to eat.
As strange as the zoo was, it seemed to be well-managed, and probably a better alternative than the animals' previous lives. Most of them have been rescued from poachers. One of the monkeys apparently used to smoke.

Then there was work. Last week, among other things, we held a meeting with the Village Development Committee members, a group of village volunteers responsible for overseeing the construction, installation, and monitoring of BSF filters. They shared how they monitor, the problems they encounter, and the requests they had for AOC.

The interns from the Philippines came to visit (well, for work...but we got to see them!). We took Lydia and Danielle out for some tarantulas. They seemed to enjoy them, as the picture below illustrates. We discovered that they faithfully follow our blogs (perhaps excessively), so I feel obliged to include them here. I imagine they will make excited hang-waving gestures and squeal while reading their names. Yes girls, you are famous! Come again soon!

 
Last weekend, Lydia, Andrea, Nicolette, and I headed to Battambang (a northern province) for 24 hours of fun. Said fun involved a ride on the bamboo train--an illegal, but very exciting, platform that races along the track until it meets another one coming the opposite direction. The platform with the least people gets taken off the track, and then put back on when the other platform has passed. Here's ours (minus the driver). We shared our platform with a Dutch guy, and his accent made me think fondly of home and biochem class.

 

Our time in Battambang also included aerobics with hundreds of Khmer people along the river, a trip to a temple with a beautiful view, some awesome fruit bats, and the killing caves. A pretty good weekend! The bats were a highlight for me--I've never seen bats that big, and they were just hanging out on the trees!

And work this week was busy, with a big health promotion meeting that I taught part of (with translation), and some home visits. Here's one boy showing me how he uses the BSF to get clean water:

 

...And a shot from our health promotion:

A-howie! (That's all)...for now.