My first (successfull) attempt to give blood

So this morning, after a thick black cambodian coffee, I decided to walk around a bit. As I was walking I saw a sign for donating blood, something I have always wanted to do but have never found the chance. It was easy enough to find the place, a small hospital tucked behind trees and other buildings. The walk there was riddled with calls from Tuk Tuk and motorbike drivers “Hello Ladeeee, you want to see Angkor Wat? You want to go to the Temple” or “Ladeee you want motorbike Ladeee” or “Hello Madam, where you go?!”
I walked through the different buildings of the hospital, under the careful watch of the locals waiting for the doctors, and found in the very back a small room to donate blood. The woman inside looked up from her desk (the room was just big enough to fit a desk, a bed and two chairs) and seemed quite surprised to see me. Once she realized I wasnt lost, that I was there to give blood, she started laughing and pulling out papers for me to fill out. After reading over my answers with a certain diligence she seemed to approve me and promptly pricked my finger to test my blood type. B Positive was the result (this I already knew from a test I had in Sangklaburi before). All the paper work done she sat me down on the small bed and went about finding my vein.
First the right arm. She tied an elastic around the upper part, gave me a ball to squeeze, and wiped alcohol over the spot where my vein was supposed to be. She seemed a little perturbed as she pulled out the needle, and she glanced at me a bit nervously. “Small” was all she said in English, and a long sentence in Khmer (Cambodian language).
Anyway she shoved this large needle into my arm and I guess it was too big for my vein. She began probing around a bit, perhaps with the intention of finding a spot that would produce more blood (although it felt more like she was puncturing all my veins in the vicinity of the needle). After about 2 minutes of this painful prodding and poking she finally gave up and pulled the needle out. She let out an exasperated “Small!” and went over to call another nurse on her cell phone.
This time the other nurse took my left arm (my right arm already producing a prominent bruise where the needle had failed) and tied it off, swabbed it with alcohol, and stuck a needle into the most prominent vein.
This time it was success! I thought I would feel dizzy or something, but I felt fine as they took a bag of my blood. Once everything was through they shoved a t-shirt, a pamphlet, a little card that says Thank You, and a can of coke into my hand and shooed me out the door.