1. Poops - you name it, all kinds of animals; cows, horses, dogs, birds, lizards, etc. Horses really poop a lot. I mean each time. Cows do pretty well too. Mickey built a basketball court not too long ago, and the dogs just LOVE to do their duties there...

2. Dust - absolutely no shortage of THAT in Cambodia. I've kind of stopped cleaning my house. The dust will always be there, no matter how much I clean it. Don't get me wrong, the house is still in a reasonable shape with Nara cleaning it twice a week. I just can't do it everyday...

3. Things falling apart or breaking - shoes, phones, equipment, shirts, cameras, whatever. My phone, for example. It has miraculously recovered lately, although only for a day. I'll wait and see if the magic continues...

4. Dirt on your clothes - especially the white ones.. That's why one has to keep buying new clothes..

5. Stars - on a good day, there're so many stars that you just want to lie down on a field and do nothing and watch the stars.

6. Copies - same same but different! You can get a "copy" for just about everything, eh? ipod, Sony mp3 player, Columbia pants, Adidas tees, North face backpacks, Crocs.... Heck, even WHO guidebook for drinking water, and of course, most of all, movies and CDs. I don't think you can even find original ones here. I must say, the ipod shuffle look almost exactly the same as the original.

7. Sweat - usually it's piece of cake for me to sweat like a pig, but lately the weather's been so cool that sometimes I can go through a day without breaking a sweat!

8. Smiles - I think I've been too conditioned by life in the city. Sometimes I forget to smile. But the Khmers... they don't.

9. Power failure - that should happen at least a few times a day or every other day.

10. Unstable internet connection - sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. Teaches me to be patient.

11. Beautiful sunsets.... What can I say?

12. Cheap and good stuff - food... clothes.. for the price you pay, the quality is good enough.

13. On a more serious note, contaminated water source - wells that are supposed to help people ended up poisoning them. Yesterday Mickey and John went to another village to check out cases of arsenic poisoning. Apparently it's really bad. Just 5 years of putting in the wells and the villagers are already showing advanced symptoms of arsenicosis. This is probably the 2nd or 3rd villages that have alarmingly high cases of arsenicosis. The question is, shouldn't the one who put in the wells be responsible to do something about it? Putting in wells without checking if the quality of the water is safe. It may cost a little bit but compared to the cost of putting in a well??

Cambodia is an interesting country. Actually RDI is quite an interesting place too. I 've learned a lot here, even though I don't always have time to pen down what I've learned.. This place grows on you after some time. It's funny how I've grown from knowing almost nothing about the country to learning to appreciate and love this place and the people here, even if there're so many things that're less than perfect. But really, there's no such place as the perfect place. Not if you're not content with what you have...

Actually, I really wanted to write about something else, but... this will have to do. I kind of forgot what I wanted to write about. As usual. There's a hole in my brain.