Study of Ethiopia
... are the only three languages with a written script. Due to the number of languages, many Ethiopians are bilingual and even trilingual. See figure 4. Religions: Due to all these different religions many problems arise, such as which religion should be the inferior religion? Around 1931 Emperor Haile Selassie ruled. When the emperor was overthrown the Ethiopian Orthodox Church lost its favoured position, along with its lands and most of its property. Other religions, particularly Western Protestant evangelical organizations, have found their activities sharply curtailed by the government. this has been displayed through closure of churches, seizure and nationalization of property and facilities, and harassment and surveillance. Some religions have assembled "secret areas" for worship and other practices of there religion. See figure 4. Population: The population in Ethiopia is extremely high, with a vastly increasing birthrate. Forms of family planning are not used steadily, if at all. The population can be seen in figure 5 and past and future estimations of Ethiopia's population can be seen in figure 6. Housing and Clothing: Homes outside of the city are primarily made of a mud/straw mixture. These homes obviously contain no electricity, or insulation. All forms of heating would be done by man made fires, or some form of wood stove. Due to the poor nature of the country nothing else is affordable. Clothing consists of a loin cloth for men, and for women some form of cloth is wrapped around the body. In the city houses are typically made of cement with a tin roof. Here you may find small amounts of electricity for heating and cooking, but nothing much more. Some wealthy families may have a television etc. In the city most people wear Western clothing. Diet: If the area is not getting foreign aid of any sort the meals, if any, consist of a food called injera. This is a pancake like sour bread of spongelike texture made chiefly with teff, a cereal grain. Other foods include wat, a beef or chicken sauce or stew made with hot spices. The universal drink is talla, a beer fermented from barley, and the leaves of the gesho plant. Taj, a fermented honey beverage, is consumed by the wealthier classes. Raw mature meat is relished, but fish is not popular. Locusts are eaten by some cultures. Many of the Ethiopian people are suffering from mass starvation. reasons for the lack of food in Ethiopia are: Over Population, caused by lack of use of family planning. 2.Poor Soils, most of the U.D.C.'s have infertile red and yellow laterite. 3.Variable Climates 4.Poor Distribution, 5.Food Destruction, 6.Tools and Technology: lack of proper farming equipment, to obtain successful yields., 8. Ignorance, 9.Food Taboos, 10.Poor Seeds. These are only a few of the problems involved with lack of food in Ethiopia. Unfortunately most of the quality food in Ethiopia is grown by latifundia, and is exported to other countries. Jobs: Jobs are very sparse, and if found, involve intense backbreaking work, at a minimal cost. Due to the amount of unemployed people, practically any form of work thrown at them will be taken. Latifundia offer jobs to occupants, such as coffee bean and cotton picking, and they pay them pennies an hour. Some of these jobs are extremely far from home, breaking up families for weeks. Others are self-employed farmers, or do not work at all. Health: Health care in Ethiopia gets slightly better as years pass, but still only a small portion of the population receives it. Famine care is immensely small, and needs great improvement. The most commonly found diseases in Ethiopia are malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, venereal diseases, smallpox, typhus, typhoid, trachoma, conjunctivitis, and sexually transmitted diseases. Also see figures 7 and 8 for a further look at health speculations. Education & Welfare: Education in Ethiopia is not compulsory by law, but public education is free from the primary to the college level. The schooling consists of 12 years divided into six years of primary school, two years of middle school and four years of secondary school. The literacy rate is extremely low at approx. 4.9% of the total population. Literacy has been steadily increasing though in the past few years. Ethiopia has been awarded the literacy price from UNESCO from it's success. Further aspects of education can be seen in figure 9. In Ethiopia there are no official welfare programs available. Existing public programs are run by voluntary religious groups only. Due to this lack of support, this is one reason for vast cases of starvation. Quality of Life: The Quality of life in Ethiopia is horrible. There is a major shortage of food, and very few jobs. Due to poor vegetation and soil, food growth is a minimal. All work is usually backbreaking slave labour, and the main priorities of an Ethiopian is survival. ECONOMIC: Development: Ethiopia is a developing country. Its level of development is extremely poor and slow, and isn't getting much better. Economy: Ethiopia continues to face difficult economic problems as one of the poorest and least developed countries in Africa. Its Economy is based chiefly on agriculture and weather plays a major factor in success rates. Development is slow and doesn't look very promising. Manufacturing suffers from under investment, shortages of raw material and poor management. Standard of Living: The GNP of Ethiopia is 114 per capita, being extremely low, and intolerable for any form of adequate survival. The level of living in turn is substantially low. Urban Areas tend to be slightly better than rural, but not by much.GNP insights can be seen in depth on figure 10. Industries: The primary Industry of Ethiopia is Agriculture, employing roughly 85% of the country's workers. The rest of the working population is broken down to 10% in service industries, and the final 5% in manufacturing. The products produced in the service industries and the manufacturing industries can be seen in figure 11 and 12. Industrial Location: There are approximately 8 main natural resources and 1 raw material found in abundance in Ethiopia. This is shown in figure 12 and 13. Two thirds of the power is provided through hydroelectricity, making Ethiopia one of the least dependent on outside sources of energy in Africa. Ethiopia has two narrow-gauge railways, two seaports, and National highways that connect major population centers in the central plateau and Eritrea. This is only a small portion of Ethiopia's transportation systems. Most of the country is made up of unpaved or uncrossable roads, making transportation slow and inefficient. The ratio of people to automobiles is 811:1. The labour involved is monotonous and backbreaking. The people are paid pennies for days work, and are usually situated in inadequate working facilities. There are very few markets to purchase clothing etc.. Ethiopia's capital is very low, and they do receive foreign aid and tariffs. Industrial Problems: Ethiopia suffers a great deal, with environmental problems. Areas that have been strip mined, grazed etc., have been left with no clean up what so ever. In doing so the appearance of the area is very poor. Pollution caused by heavy machinery is very low, because there isn't any, but scrap and soot level...