User talk:Allyse

Central African Republic

Central African Republic, also known as CAR, is located in the center of Africa (north of the Democratic Republic of Congo). The whole country itself is a little smaller than the state of Texas. It is a landlocked country, which means it’s completely surrounded by land. The climate in CAR is very tropical; hot, humid winters and mild to hot, wet summers. They are known for some of their natural resources such as: diamonds, uranium, gold, oil, timber, and hydropower. They don’t have many crops to grow because floods are very common, so it tends to cause a drought. The population of CAR is 3,799,897 however it is believed that the population will decrease severely due to the AIDS epidemic, which means there will be problems such as: higher infant mortality and death rates, lower life expectancy, decreased population and growth rates, etc. The average age for people in CAR is 18.12 years, for men it is 17.75 years and for female it is 18.5 years. The different ethnic groups in Central African Republic are: Baya (33%), Banda (27%), Mandjia (13%), Sarah (10%), Mboum (7%), M’Baka (4%), Yakoma (4%), other (2%). They also have many different religions, but the most common is indigenous beliefs. They also have high percentages of other religions such as Roman Catholics and Protestants, and a small percent of Muslims. The main language in Central African Republic is French, but they also speak Sangho and other tribal languages. The government in CAR is republic, hence the name Central African Republic. Their constitution was just passed on December 5th, 2004 by referendum. The legal system is mainly based on French law. The universal age for voting in CAR is 21 years old. The main contributors in the CAR economy are subsistence agriculture, along with forestry. Due to the landlocked position of CAR they have many struggles with things such as: poor transportation systems, large amount of unskilled people in the work force, etc. Also, they face the difficulty of the income being distributed extremely unequal to the people. They do receive grants from France, but those can only meet a certain amount of their needs. They have a huge struggle against the AIDS epidemic, which has wiped out approximately 23,000 in 2003. Currently, an estimate of 260,000 people is living with AIDS in Central African Republic. They also have a struggle with many diseases that they receive from their water. Most people in CAR do not even filter out their water, so parasites that are in the water enter their bodies.