Call me slow on the up-take, but since I'm not mom to Guatemalan-born kids I haven't been following the politics of that country as closely as others have. That being the case, I'm relying on others to bring me up to speed on happenings there and the "Why" that goes with.

Lisa fills in many gaps well, and information from other bloggers flesh out the picture.

Why am I not at all surprised to learn that there's an election coming up there soon? For President, nonetheless, and with the incumbent candidate very publicly opposed to international adoption of Guatemalan kids.

That's a forehead slapper, Doh!, moment if ever I had one.

September 9th is the polling date, and hopes are spreading that once that is behind whoever wins the situation will calm down and children will stop having their safe refuges invaded by AK-47-toting soldiers.

Some people really don't care who gets in the way, do they?

In some better, yet still interesting news, this story from India has me rethinking my garden.

It appears that a plant called the Almoria geranium ... sorry, and maybe this is just because I recently finished "The Deathly Hallows", and watched "Order of the Phoenix" last night, but there's more than a little of Potter magic in that name to me ... that comes complete with a natural insect repellent -- a strong and powerful one, at that.

The compound is, “so dominant in this aromatic plant that even a slight touch or a blast of wind is enough for it to emanate a strong smell.”

As one doctor put it: “Even if a person has an Almoria geranium plant at home, insects and mosquitoes will stay away.

I want!

How great would it be if something like the Almoria could grow around houses in Africa and all over Asia? Good-bye malaria, dengue, chikungunia, and more. What could that mean to the number of children being sick or orphaned? Could something as important as relief from so much illness really be this simple?

I vote for more work on this!

From Malawi, the Centre for Social Concern is reporting that girl orphans are the most vulnerable potential victims of trafficking.

Although this feels intuitive, how reliable the information being spread may be is questionable.

“Poverty is the main problem on this because, for instance, a girl orphan has nothing and mostly she is attracted to go outside the country because of money and the end result is getting abused,” said Mtambo, observing that women and children have ended up being killed and their private parts removed due to human trafficking.

The business about removing body parts is always a red flag when it comes to local interpretation of information.

Sticking with the girl thing, though, here's a piece that suggests adoptive couples in India strongly prefer girls that begins with a very provocative sentence: While female foeticide continues unabated in the state, an unwanted girl child, if born, seems to have a better chance at life.

Citing statistics that say of the 115 abandoned children adopted in Gujarat from certified agencies in 2006-2007, 71 were girls, while 44 were boys.

My first reaction to the information is that 115 adoptions must leave many, many children in the lurch in that part of India. (If you recall, more than 30,000 people were killed there in an earthquake in 2001, and the place hasn't recovered a lot since then.)

Choosing the sex of an adopted child is a contentious issue that I go back and forth on. Other opinions are welcome.