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Countries ENG 110 - College Writing II - Spring 2012 other pages welcome | course | essay | syllabus | reports Refugees and Intercultural Sensitivity  this page society | demographics | quality of life

Our wiki for publishing your essays

This page has basic information about the half dozen countries that are home for most of Buffalo's refugees who are served by Journey's End.

Three web pages for you to read about your country:

The Wikipedia entry for your country. For most of our countries, the Wikipedia has supplementary articles focusing on aspects of the country, for example, the music of Burma.

At EveryCulture.com, the entry about your country will have some overlap with the Wikipedia entry, but it will cover many other aspects.

At Freedom House, you can learn more about the politics of your country, especially the recent events that may help with your timeline assignment.

Bhutan

Wikipedia's Bhutan

Gross National Happiness - Bhutan

Bhutan a Kingdom of Happiness trailer

Business Week's Happiest Countries - No. 8: Bhutan

Here's a surprise: The small Asian nation of Bhutan ranks eighth in the world, despite relatively low life expectancy, a literacy rate of just 47%, and a very low GDP per capita. Why? Researchers credit an unusually strong sense of national identity. Plus, the country has beautiful scenery and a largely unspoiled culture, thanks to strict governmental limits on tourism, development, and immigration. Pretty counterintuitive, but Bhutan seems to have found a recipe for happiness.

Refugee crisis - Wikipedia's  Bhutanese refugee crisis | BhutaneseRefugees.com

Discussion topics and questions

Life in Bhutan

What is it like in your country? food, techonolgy, entertainment/fun, music, education

How do you say "Hello" in Dzongkha or Nepali (Bhutan), Arabic (Mideast), Burmese,

I saw a video about __________, and I was wondering ...

Here's a map of ___________. Where did you live? How do you pronounce that?

What do you miss about your country?
Do you still have family back in your country?

What was the worst thing going on in your country?
What did you leave behind in your country?
What type of struggles did you face?

How could a woman like you deal with all of these rules and restrictions you have to go with every day?

Are some of the things us Americans say just rumors in your country?
What do Americans know about your country?

Leaving Bhutan

Were you forced to leave or did you want to leave your country?
What was the hardest part of your journey coming here?
Were you in a refugee camp? Which one and for how long?
What made you decide to come to our country? Why Buffalo NY?

Life in the U.S.

Did you come with your family? Did you have to leave any family behind?

Do you ever want to go back ?
Do you think it's better in U.S.?

What do you want to achieve by coming here?
What do you want to learn from our country?
What are you planning on doing in future?
Are you planning on getting into any political activaty?

How have people treated you here since you arrived?

How has your family handled you being here?
What is something you found that you liked about the U.S.?
Is our country what you expected?

How different are the people in our country and the people in yours?
Are the people nicer here or in your country?
 
Will adjusting to American culture be difficult for you?
Is there anything in America you are excited to experience or try?

What is your favorite type of music or tv show?

Iraq - Do you have any feelings of revenge against Americans?
What doyou think about American troops coming to your country? Do you think its fair?

citizenship

• how did your ancestors come to this country?
• did they know English?
• how did they get citizenship status?
  

green card - Wikipedia's Permanent residence (United_States)

U.S. government - Green Card (Permanent Residence)

Journey's End - Immigration Legal Services

	Horn of Africa
	Somalia Somali Republic Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya جمهورية الصومال‎ Jumhūriyyat aṣ-Ṣūmāl	Ethiopia Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia ye-Ītyōṗṗyā Fēdēralāwī Dīmōkrāsīyāwī Rīpeblīk	Eritrea State of Eritrea Hagere Ertra دولة إرتريا Dawlat Iritrīya	Sudan Republic of the Sudan جمهورية السودان Jumhūrīyat as-Sūdān
Welcome to my country!
population	9,900,000	82,000,000	5,800,000	30,000,000
% speaks English as first or second language	none	0.2%	0.2%	none
land area (sq mi)	250,000	430,000	45,000	730,000
capital largest city	Mogadishu	Addis Ababa 3,400,000	Asmara	Khartoum
gov't type	Coalition government No constituted government	Federal parliamentary republic	Provisional government Single-party state	Federal presidential republic Authoritarian regime
head of state	Sharif Sheikh Ahmed	Girma Wolde-Giorgis	Isaias Afewerki	Omar al-Bashir
head of gov't	Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali	Meles Zenawi	Isaias Afewerki	Omar al-Bashir
groups	Somalis 85% Benadiris Bantus and other	Oromo 34.5% Amhara 26.9% Somali 6.2% Tigray 6.1%	Tigrinya 55% Tigre 30%	Sudanese Arabs also Nubians, Coptic, Beja, Nuba, Fur
languages	Arabic	Amharic	Tigrinya Arabic English	Sudanese Arabic
religions	Islam	Christianity 63%, Islam 34%	Christianity 50-62%, Islam 36-50%	Islam
currency to 1 US$	1,627 SOS Somali shilling	17.2 ETB Ethiopian birr	15 ERN Eritrean Nakfa	2.67 SDG Sudanese Pound
independence	1960	980 BC	1991	3500 BC; 1956
plane (US$)	no scheduled flights	$1,450 via Chicago and Istanbul	$2,100 via Zurich, Frankfort, and Jeddah	no scheduled flights via Cairo $3,500
I'net TLD links	.so wikipedia google translate & news map Somalia & Mogadishu images night life & video hip hop	.et wikipedia google translate & news map Ethiopia and Addis Ababa images night life & video hip hop	.er wikipedia google translate & news map Eritrea and Asmara images night life & video hip hop	.sd wikipedia google translate & news map Sudan and Khartoum images for night life & video hip hop

	Asia and the Mid-east
	Myanmar Republic of the Union of Myanmar Pyidaunzu Thanmăda Myăma Nainngandaw	Afghanistan Islamic Republic of Afghanistan جمهوری اسلامی افغانستان Jomhūrī-ye Eslāmī-ye Afġānistān (Persian) د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت Da Afġānistān Islāmī Jomhoriyat (Pashto)	Iran Islamic Republic of Iran جمهوری اسلامی ایران Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān	Bhutan Kingdom of Bhutan 'Brug Rgyal-khab Dru Gäkhap
Welcome to my country!
population	60,000,000	30,000,000	75,000,000	710,000
% speaks English	none	none	none
land area (sq mi)	260,000	250,000	630,000	15,000
capital largest city	Naypyidaw Yangon (Rangoon) 4,300,000	Kabul 3,900,000	Tehran 7,300,000	Thimphu
gov't type	Unitary presidential republic	Islamic republic	Unitary state, Islamic republic	Unitary parliamentary democracy and Constitutional monarchy
head of state	Thein Sein	Hamid Karzai	Mahmoud Ahmadinejad	King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck
head of gov't	Thein Sein	Hamid Karzai	Ali Larijani	Jigme Y. Thinley
groups	Burman 68% Shan 9% Karen 7% other 16%	Pashtun 42%    Tajik 27%    Hazara 9%    Uzbek 9%	Persian 51% Azeri 24% Kurd 7%	Ngalop (Northern Bhutanese) 50%, Lhotshampa (ethnic Nepalese) 35%, indigenous or migrant tribes 15%
languages	Burmese plus regional languages	Dari (Persian) 50% Pashto 35% Uzbek and Turkmen 11%	Persian, Kurdish	Dzongkha and Nepali
religions	Buddhist	Muslim	Muslim (Shi'a)	Buddhist (75%), Hindu
currency to 1 US$	6.4 MMK kyat	48.3 AFN Afghani	11,300 IRR Iranian Rial	Bhutanese Ngultrum
independence	849 AD; 1948	1747; 1919	625 BC; 1979
plane (US$)	limited - $1,800 via Bangkok	$2,000 via Istanbul	$1,100 via Istanbul
I'net TLD links	.mm wikipedia google translate & news map Myanmar and Yangon (Rangoon) images night life & video hip hop	.af wikipedia google translate & news map Afghanistan and Kabul images night life & video hip hop	.ir wikipedia google translate & news map Iran & Tehran images for night life & video hip hop	.bt

Society

The first set of data covers some basic information about the people in your country. How much money do the people have? Who has it and who doesn't? What kind of values does the society have?

GDP - International Monetary Fund's Gross Domestic Product. The value of all goods and services produced in that country. Our table shows the number of dollars in billions. The larger the number, the richer the country as a whole.

per cap - International Monetary Fund's GDP per capita. While the GDP shows the size of the whole economy, the GDP per capita shows that same productivity per person (per capita). Our table shows the number of dollars (US$). The larger the number, the richer the people individually.

inc = - income equality. How equally is income distributed in your country? How great is the divide between rich and poor in your country? The U.N.'s GINI index measures that divide. A Gini index of 0 represents perfect equality, while an index of 100 implies perfect inequality. The table shows the rank order for each country out of the 125 countries. The closer the rank number is to Namibia's GINI of 74 and rank of #1, the greater the gap between rich and poor. Adjusting for the size of the country, countries on Namibia's end have a lot of rich people and a lot of poor people. The countries with ranks numbers closer to Denmark's GINI of 40 and rank of #125 don't have as many rich people, but they have hardly any poor people. Pakistan is similar to the Netherlands because even though it is much poorer as a nation, the money is spread about as equally.

HD - The United Nations' Human Development Index combines three other indices: life expectancy, education, and wealth. The table shows the rank order number of each country. A rank closer to 1 means a longer life, more education, and greater wealth.

HP - The New Economics Foundation's Happy Planet Index combines subjective life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and ecological footprint per capita. The lower the number, the "happier".

Geert Hofstede (right) is the prominent researcher in the field of cross-cultural characteristics. He has measured and compared most of the world's countries on five dimensions of culture. The table shows each country's score (always a number) for each of these dimensions, not its rank order.

Demographics: Women and Children

The next set of data examines the size of a country's population and how it got that way. The data I have chosen here emphasize the conditions for women and children.

sex ratio - CIA World Factbook's Sex Ratio. Numbers below 100 mean there are more females than males, and vice versa.

For the three data points below, you can find basic demographic information at the U.S. Census Bureau's Information Gateway. Choose your country from the drop-down list, and click submit.

crude birth rate - The number per 1,000 population.

life expectancy at birth - The number of years.

< 5 mortality rate - The number per 1,000 births who die before age 5.

I was curious about teen pregnancy rates, but I could not find data for all our countries in one place. However, I did find U.N. map and data for the developed countries (right). Click to enlarge.

maternal mortality - The Maternal Mortality Estimates (.pdf file) developed by WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA. Maternal mortality ratio. The number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

mothers - Save the Children's 2007 Mothers Index (.pdf file). The Best and Worst Places to be a Mother. Helps document conditions for mothers and children in 140 countries - 41 developed nations and 99 in the developing world - and shows where mothers fare best and where they face the greatest hardships. It has three tiers. Of our 13 countries, only the U.S. and the Netherlands are in Tier I. The rest of our countries are in Tier II. Our table shows the rank of each country. The closer the rank is to 1, the better for mothers and children.

gender = - SocialWatch.org's Gender Equality Index. The three dimensions included in the GEI are: economic activity, empowerment and education. A larger number, closer to Sweden's 89, indicates more equality between men and women in these three dimensions.

WIP - Women in politics. Interparliamentary Union. What percentage of the legislators in your country are women? Our table shows the % W in the middle column, that is, the percentage of women in the Lower or single House column.

Quality of Life

What's it like to live in these countries? Without being able to experience it ourselves, we can get some sense of life there by looking at some countable and comparable data. How does your country cope with people on the margins of society?

QoL - The Economist's 2010 Quality of Life Index. The table shows the rank order number of each country out of 111 as an aggregate of nine quality of life factors. The lower the number, the higher the comparative quality.

prison - How many people are in prison? Our table show the number per 100,000. Wikipedia's List of countries by incarceration rate. See also the NY Times interactive graphic.

hom - Wikipedia's List of countries by homicide rate. The number per 100,000if your country is not listed.

cap - Wikipedia's List of countries by use of capital punishment.

1 Abolished for all crimes
2 Abolished for all crimes except under exceptional/special circumstances (such times of wars)
3 Abolished in practice i.e. haven't used capital punishment or the death penalty in at least 10 years
4 Retainers of capital punishment or the death penalty

health -  Wikipedia's List of countries by health care coverage

1 Nations with some type of universal health care system.
2 Nations attempting to obtain universal health care.
3 Nations with no universal health care.

aids - How bad is AIDS in your country? CIA World Factbook's AIDS adult prevalence rate. The table above shows the percentage (column second from right on the CIA Factbook page). Note that this list does not include children. The closer to 0, the less AIDS.

alcohol - How much drinking do people do? Wikipedia's List of countries by alcohol consumption. Our table shows the number value of litres of pure alcohol.

drinking age - What's the legal drinking age? Wikipedia's List of countries by legal drinking age.