After 10 weeks of travelling, we arrived in Congo-Brazzaville.
We already read in literature that Congo is one of the richest (!) countries in the world for her natural resources. Yet her people are considered one of the poorest in the world, because of the second lowest nominal GDP per capita.
Over the years, but especially after the mid 80s, the economy dramatically declined. people are starving from famine, many war victims and diseases killed aproximately 5 million people. This resulted in a dramatically declined national output and the revenue for the government.
the economy relies on the mining businesses. Congo is a large supplier of industrial diamonds, cobbalt and copper.
Women are not safe in Congo. United Nations is not yet ready to change the situation as it is at the moment. lots of women are raped, abused and murdered.
We arrived at the Republic of Chad, week 8. We had some troubles passing the borders from Libya to Chad, but thankfully things turned out positive.
Chad is also a country with many diverse regions, such as desert in the north and savannah in the south. A little weird are the two national languages: French and Arabic. Well Arabic isn't that surprising actually. The country is bounded to Libya, Cameroon, Sudan, Central Africa and Nigeria.
Thomas and Sarah had a pretty hard time speaking French, as their Arabic was very poor. I speak some Arabic which I've learned in Jordan, Israel and Egypt. But speaking French wasn't a problem at all for me and Jessica.
Immediately, we noticed that people are very poor here. Probably one of the poorest countries I've ever seen before, besides Senegal. Above that, the vast majority of the people are Muslim and Roman Catholic. It is also a country where polygamy is forbidden by law, but yet it's very common. one third of the women live in unions where polygamy is common.
after 11 weeks of travelling, we arrived at my favourite destination all times: Madagascar.
Typical for the east coast is the rainforest. The same rainforest is also a big issue now: the largest parts of the forests already vanished.
In the center of the Island, we find dry savannahs (as seen in Africa), Baobab trees in the west, palm-tree beaches at the beautiful coasts. You can't imagine the beauty of these beaches, unless you've seen it yourself.
How to explore Madagascar?
You better go by jeep (safari, book via your touroperator) or rent a jeep on your own for a few days. That is what we did: for a short period of time, we rented two jeeps, crossing and cruising threw the fauna and flora of this big island. It's also possible to ask a local guide to go along with you. It's worth the price !
As we moved on threw the rainforests, we spotted a lot of extraordinary reptiles (geckos, chameleons) and tortoises (no shortage of these animals here!). Madagascar is also called the Island of Lemurs. We saw a lot of these creatures passing by.
Technically, Madagascar seems to be a mini-continent on it's own. it is the fourth largest island in the world, with a wide variety of flora and fauna.
After 11 weeks of traveling we arrived at one of the world's poorest countries: Madagascar. It is a country that gets its income mainly from agriculture. On our journey through Madagascar, we met an organization that has been engaged for several years in numerous projects in that country. CMGDM ( Coopération MarGas pour le Développement Madagasikara) is the name of the organization. That organization has already achieved a great deal during the period 2008-2010. They have refurbished bungalows, created new tourism opportunities, improved water supplies, training, etc. Because we were very impressed by this organization, we decided to follow the organization for a couple of days. Rice is the main product of Madagascar but unfortunately because of the lack of modern machinery and obsolete irrigation systems Madagascar can only rely on rice from other countries. CMGDM explained to us and to the local population how they can use the ground on a more efficient way and to obtain a higher production. We helped with pulling the seeds out and planted new seeds that are much farther apart than originally had been done. We have also learned that it is not necessary for the plants that they are under water permanently. But thanks to the heavy rains of recent months the fields stood under water. Later that week we made a tour in a factory of sugar that CMGDM had built. This sugar is processed and made ready for export. Vanilla and coffee also makes a large part of the export. Along our many walks we saw many fishers and nomadic tribes. What we found strange were the few types of livestock. But the locals told us that livestock are not valuable to life from. They do not possess the necessary food to fatten the animals and the animals barely give milk. But most of the nomadic held Zebus. Zebus are held for religious reasons. They are not slaughtered and are not kept for the milk. The milk we drank in our hotel was almost sour because the milk truck came too late to collect all the fresh milk. The vegetables and fruits we saw on the locale markets were not always of equal quality. The rainy season was just over so a lot of harvest failed. When we returned to our hotel we saw regular trucks and jeeps stuck on the muddy road. When a truck got stuck we could not believe our eyes: Within a few minutes the truck was completely plundered. So Madagascar certainly needs more money and resources for the economy of to move forward.
This
country is the last country weve visited. The last, but not the least.
Yesterday, Ive read an article on the website of The New York Times (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/madagascar/index.html) about Madagascar. It says
Madagascar is one of the richest countries concerning nature. Research has made clear that 80% of the
animals and plants on Madagascar, exist on Madagascar only. So nowhere else on the world.
This gives
a big hint about how interesting it is for all people around the world to visit
this Island, which is the fourth biggest one on the planet. It also means were
not the only tourists here. Lots of Americans and Asian people, taking pictures
everywhere they can. You would think its life depending for them. Its very
irritating, in my opinion. But at least lots of tourism is good for the economy
of Madagascar. It provides the people with the money they need to keep them
alive, and to protect their heritage. Because lots of companies are making
abuse of lots of the precious materials that are available on this fabulous
island. The second day we started
exploring this nature and his animals. The day after that, we saw the other
side of the Island. We went to a place where some international companies
started exploiting some of the fishes the see around Madagascar is producing.
There are two sides of this story. The positive side is that people can take
profit of it, because of the raise of industrial growth, which is only 5% in
Madagascar. The downside is that theres less and less fish, because these
companies kill far too much fishes. The fourth day, we went to a small city
called Toliara. Its one of the bigger cities on the island, with about 100 000
people living there. Its right next to a big national park, called Isalo, and its right next to the sea. Concerning
nature, its very beautiful here. It proves people can combine tourists (and
thus economy) and nature, without causing too much damage to the beautiful
nature of this island.
Congo - Economy
Republic of Chad
The Nature of Madagascar
