Random Nicaragua Stuff

On Sunday, one of the candidates for the Nicaraguan presedential elections, Herty Lewites died suddenly of a massive heart attack. That just came out of nowhere. I mean apparently he'd had minor heart problems for a while, but just started feeling sick suddenly on Sunday, went to the hospital and a few hours later, BOOM. Unbelievable. He was the one all my Nica friends were going to vote for, so now they're saying they might not even vote at all. So I don't know what this means for the elections. I know our government is concerned about the possibility of Daniel Ortega winning the elections, because of his ties to Castro and Chavez, but hoepfully he won't win. Not that I think we should be intervening in their elections.
One thing that I have noticed about Nicaraguan politics, is that almost all Nicaraguans refer to their poitical leaders and candidates by their first names. Instead of "Ortega" or "Lewites", it's "Daniel" or "Herty", even the posters for the candidates that have been up in Managua have their first names. And when the ex-president of Nicaragua was sitting in the row behind us at the movie theatre, it wasn't "Alemán", it was "Arnaldo". Just kinda interesting, I think.
Apparently, Mi Familia, which is the Nicaraguan equivalent of our Child Social Services, has a new director who wants to stop all adoptions by foreigners and doesn't want to let any kids out of the country. I just don't understand that. if a child can have a better life being adopted by a foreign family, why not let them be adopted? Too many of these kids in the orphanages in Nicaragua are never going to get adopted, and when they leave the orphanage, they're going to end up having kids they can't care for, who are going to end up being sent to orphanages, and the cycle starts all over again. I just don't get that at all.
Well, enough ranting for now.