Burundi

Overview: Amber Lawton: I learned that the population is very big and they don't have that much money. Some kids get to go to school and learn but other cant because they can't get in. I've also learned that they speak a couple of languages and they sort of eat what we eat but not any kind of fancy food. The last thing ive learned was about the kids and the families and how they live their live in Burundi and what they do for fun. Overview: Hedin Beattie: I learned that, like money other african countries, Burundi is very poor. One of the 10 poorest countries ever. It has also suffered through a tough history similiar to the USA. They have ha more than one civil war, are always basically in a great depression, and needs help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Statistics: Burundi is one of the ten poorest countries in the world and is also small, densely populated, and landlocked. Population: (7,795,000) Capital: (Bujumbura; 378,000) Area: (27,834 square kilometers) (10,747 square miles) Language: (Kirundi, French, Swahili)

Geography:

Provinces of Burundi.Capital: [|Bujumbura].

History: Burundi has a long history in which it was controlled by many differernt factions such as Ruanda-Urundi 1887-1914, a Belgian Company 1914-1962, and finally earned its independence in the year od 1962. Ruanda-Urundi 1887-1914: the highlands of Rwanda and Burundi, which was located east of the lake Kivu, was the very last location to be reached by europeon explorers in the late nineteenth century. Before this time period, the "locals"tell of centuries about the Tutsi,a tall cattle-rearing thought to be from the northern Nile, but had infiltrated the Burundi and Rwanda area, and took over the Hutu whom had started living and growing agriculture in the region. According to our apparently brilliant historians, the beginning of the Rwabugiri reign started in 1960. They controlled part of the Rwanda area considering the tribe's name. media type="google" key="3993551497847450989&ei=OTO5SdDON6S2qAPIpszbAQ&q=burundi+history&hl=en" width="400" height="326" [|click for info about picture]

Economy: The country has a very poor amount of money due to civil wars. They have a poor GPI, or the amount of country income earned. Others than civil wars, there is a lot of other reasons why.    Government: **In November 1995, the presidents of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) announced a regional initiative for a negotiated peace in Burundi facilitated by former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere. In July 1996, former Burundian President Buyoya returned to power in a bloodless coup. He declared himself president of a transitional republic, even as he suspended the National Assembly, banned opposition groups, and imposed a nationwide curfew.**

To this day, Burundi is a Republic. media type="youtube" key="kzvWG0v0X6I" width="425" height="350"

Religion: Burundi's religion are Roman Catholic, indigenous beliefs, Muslim, Protestant, and Christians. Sixty-seven percent of the population is Christian (62 percent Roman Catholic and 5 percent Protestant); 23 percent of the people follow exclusively traditional beliefs, and the remaining 10 percent are Muslim. (Students from Burundi) (People from Burundi)

The Bagaza government regarded the Catholic Church as pro-Hutu and restricted Masses, prohibited religious gatherings without prior approval, nationalized Catholic schools, banned the Catholic youth movement, and shut down the Catholic radio station and newspaper. The Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists were banned in 1986.

Culture:
 * Burundian traditional clothing consists of cloth wraparounds //(pagnes).// Women, girls, and elderly men still wear them in rural areas.The males wear two pieces of cloth, which hang down to the knees, with a cord around the waist. Many people go barefoot in the villages.The landmarks most typical of Burundian culture are the family compounds, called rugos, spread throughout the countryside. In spite of the high population density, people do not live near each other in villages, but rather in their own compounds composed of bee-hive style huts surrounded by a high hedge or reed wall.The Living Museum in the capital, Bujumbura, is a recreation of such settlements that also displays basketwork, pottery, drums, and photographs. The second-largest town in Burundi, Gitega, has a national museum that is small but very educational.**


 * (Burundi's flag) (Burundi's Coat of Arms)**


 * Food and Economy: The most common foods consist of beans, corn, peas, millet, sorghum, cassava, sweet potato, and bananas.**

Social Problems:. Civilians in Burundi have lived through years of conflict and are currently in a state of chronic crisis. Although a ceasefire was agreed at the end of 2003, in certain areas of Burundi peace still remains a hope rather than a reality and the effects of war are still very much present. The country's civil war has compounded the economic crisis, and severely damaged the health sector. The government's capacity to invest in the health sector is limited. Medical staff are lacking, infrastructure has been destroyed, and ongoing insecurity in certain regions has increased the inaccessibility of health care for many. At the same time, infectious and parasitic diseases, especially malaria, remain huge health problems. Despite the beginnings of political stability in Burundi, the mortality rates are alarming and well above those associated with even an emergency situation. The violence has led to a scarcity of goods and services, supply and transport problems, an increase in violence and the destruction of family belongings causing generalised vulnerability of the population.poverty and health is now well known, and health is recognised as an essential requirement for economic development. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of Burundians who have no access to basic health care as a result of their inability to pay for it. This is because since February 2002, the Burundian government have implemented a policy of cost recovery for health services. The cost-recovery system is part of a revived health reform planned before the war. It aims to mobilise extra resources for health care. Faced with only a small part of the national budget allocated to the health sector, the Ministry of Health had no other choice but to impose the burden of healthcare costs on the patient. Burundi has also suffered from AIDS. Half of africans in Burundi have AIDS.

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Other:media type="youtube" key="5oL4B8weDbg" width="425" height="350" **The Kingdom of Burundi was founded during the middle of the seventeenth century by Ntare Rushatsi, who assumed the style of Mwami ca. 1650. The country became a German protectorate in 1884, becoming part of German East Africa in 1890. The Mwami was recognised as Sultan of greater Burundi in 1905. Conquered by Belgian troops in 1917, the two neighbouring kingdoms of Burundi and Rwanda became the League of Nations.The traditional king lists of Burundi date the origin of the dynasty from Ruhinda in 1530. However, more recent scholarship conducted at the Royal tombs during the 1960s have established that the dynasty dates only from about 1675-1680. The four cycles of Kings were discarded in favour of two cycles only, beginning with Ntare Rushatsi, now styled Ntare I.**