TEN POOREST COUNTRIES

I have to say this has been one of, if not the, most confusing blog. Did you know there are like 20 million ways to measure the wealth of a country? Okay, maybe I am exaggerating, but there are a lot. Even if you understand those, you have still got to figure out what all the acronyms mean. You have got your gross domestic product (GDP), GDP per capita, GDP by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), GDP by PPP per capita, GDP nominal, GDP nominal per capita, GDP real growth rate, GDP official exchange rate, GDP official exchange rate per capita, and so on and so forth. Feel free to look around on the website where I got all of my statistics at and decide for yourself which one measures the porrest countries the most accurately. I decided on GDP by PPP per capita. That basically means the total amount of money the country produces gets changed into US Dollars so we can understand it and is expressed per 1 population. Now you will have to understand that I do not understand what the difference is between these two lists. They both say they are Gross Domestic Product by Purchasing Power Parity per capita, but the countries on the two lists are different. So I decided to just put both of them on here and you can decide between the two. Personally, I think the GDP>PPP per capita seems like it is more of the poorest countries, but I do not know which is actually more accurate. So here they are, the two lists and you can now decide which one makes more sense to you.


http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp_pur_pow_par_percap-purchasing-power-parity-per-capita

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp_ppp_percap-economy-gdp-ppp-per-capita
There you go. Make what you will of these lists. I will post again next week.

Jenna

TEN COUNTRIES I HAVE VISITED

Well, maybe not really visited, but I have at least seen the airports! The first seven countries on the list I have actually stayed in for a little while. I've been to Mbarara, Uganda 3 times. Once when I was 10, once when I was 13, and once when I was 14. We visited and worked with some missionaries from our church there. Also, we have got to go to a game park twice called Queen Elizabeth National Park. All three times I went were amazing. I love Uganda. If you total them up I have been there for 37 days. Two summers ago I went to Durban, South Africa to visit some missionaries there for 17 days. That was insane, because I had no idea what South Africa was like. I will tell you this, they have the most amazing accents I have heard. May before last me and my family went to Oaxaca (Wah-ha-ka), Mexico. While we were there we visited a missionary there and attended a Spanish immersion class called Amigos del Sol. I was there for 14 days. That was an amazing experience and I really hope I get to go back to Oaxaca sometime. I also went to Saltillo, Mexico last summer with the high school group from my church. I was there for 6 days that were super fun. I think we are going back again this summer and I am stoked about it. I went to Costa Rica for 10 days as my brother's senior trip. Ah, so many memories there! Last year I went to Israel for 10 days. It was really interesting to see where Jesus actually was. It was also really fun being overseas with my friends and people from my church. On the way back home from that trip we went to Greece for 2 days. I really wish I had been more awake for those two days, but when you get a wake up call to go to the airport at 12:30 AM you can only be so awake the rest of the day. The part of that trip that I do remember was amazing. We were in Athens and...wow. Just being around things that are several thousand years old is awesome. London, I have only been there on layovers, but I have seen both Heathrow and Gatwick (unfortunately we had to switch airports on our layover.) We did get to walk around the first time we went through London. Jet lag is no fun though. This last time we went through we didn't really get to sight see much, but we did spend the night in a Hilton there. We went through the Paris airport and, to say it simply, it was not something I would want to do again. I have only been through the Brussels airport for a little while and I do not really remember that much about it. Except that they had really good chocolate on the plane. I never actually got off the plane in Kenya, but we did stop there to drop off or pick up some passengers on the way to and from Uganda one time. Well, now that I have told you all about it, here is the list of the ten countries I have (sort-of) visited.


Well, if you want the full stories from most of these countries, you can visit my other blog by clicking on the link on the side bar or by clicking on the title. There are some pictures there too. Enjoy! I will post again next week!

Jenna

TEN LEAST LITERATE COUNTRIES

I am putting this blog out a little early because I will not bedoing school this Friday, considering it is Good Friday. I figured the earlier the better, so here it is.

I have not heard that much about literacy around the world. You hear about HIV/AIDS, extreme poverty, bad water, but you do not hear very much in the news about illiteracy. I found out several interesting things while researching for this blog. I found out that the UN declared from 1 January 2003 to 2012 as the Literacy Decade. You can find out more about that here. I had no idea about this. Also, since it was first celebrated in 1966, International Literacy Day is September 8. More information here. There is also a Global Action Week from April 23 to 29th, 2007. You can find out about that here. There really is so much out there about literacy probelms but it is just not where we can hear it. And if we cannot hear it we do not think it exists. We ignore it. But it is a real problem and there are tons of people trying to solve this problem. Now, so you will know who they are, here are the ten least literate countries.



One interesting observation I made is that not all of these countries are in Africa. Sure, the majority of them are, but not all. I thought that was interesting, because most of the other lists like this one are all in Africa, but this problem is bigger than just Africa. So do what you can to help this. Sign the chain, take part in Global Action Week. Let us change the world for the better.

I will have a new post up next Friday about a new topic. You will have to check back and see what it is next time. So until then, Happy Easter everyone!

Jenna