Today we’re staying in Africa for the last country beginning with the letter ‘B’.
Burundi is a tiny mountainous country in the Great Rift Valley wedged between Tanzania, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Like Burkina Faso, Burundi is a country synonymous with unrest and civil war. It’s unsurprising then that the life expectancy is only fifty years, and the GDP per capita is only $900. This gives Burundi the dubious honour of being the poorest country in the world. Unsurprisingly Burundi was ranked as the world’s least happy nation in the 2016 World Happiness Report, although only 4.5% of the population has internet access to read this report.
Like Burkina Faso, much of Burundi’s population is reliant on subsistence farming. Although, as someone writing about every country, Burundis exports are a refreshing change from oil or petroleum products. Burundi’s biggest exports are coffee (34%) and gold (25%).
On a happier note Burindi has an ancient method for brewing traditional beer. It’s drunk by sitting around a large container of communal beer and multiple people then use straws to drink the beer. I’m not sure how corona compliant this practice is, but it does sound fun.
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