Africa by Sam

With all of the "G" countries like Gambia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and even Equatorial Guinea for the map test, I thought I would pick Gambia because it was in the middle of Senegal. For starters I found out The Gambia is a Mandinka term Kambra/Kambaa which mean Gambia river. This land and river dates back to around 1444 when the Portuguese lived on this land.  http://historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistoriesResponsive.asp?historyid=ad47 The land was later French territory.  The British built Fort James in 1661 about 17 mile up the river. The French owned Senegal and the British owned Gambia. 

Djibouti is a small county in the northwestern part of Africa.  It has 23,200 sq kilometers or 8,958 sq miles which are smaller than the land size of Maryland.  California has 163,707 sq miles. One of the largest economic challenges is employment. The unemployment rate is 52% and most of the unemployed are young men and women.  Djibouti is already at a disadvantage since the average life expectancy for men is 62.2 years and women 65.5 year.  The whole infrastructure is behind most modern countries.  It lacks public transportation and public services like education. Poverty is everywhere and had become the norm. The current plan is to build ports along the water and roadways and electric power lines to Ethiopia.  The import of commercial goods would increase some economic growth and jobs. What I wanted to know is why is there an USAF air station there and what other countries have a military base there.  Japan has one only base outside of Japan and it is in Djibouti.  Japan was there t

Why are Kenyans great runners and holding marathon records?  I want to know and pass what I find on to this blog.  This is just a test blog and more will be added soon and no later than Jan 16.  As of today the marathon record holder is by Dennis Kimette with the time of 2:02:57.  To put this in the speed of a 400M track like the one around a football field is about 1:10 a lap or a 4:40 mile pace. I would bet on this NDNU campus there are less than 10 people that can do this for one lap and less than 3 that can do this for a mile.  There are many other Kenyan athletes like Wilson Kipsand, Mary Keitany and Jemima Jelagat Sumgong that are placing in the top 3 finished winner big prize money over $50,000.  In Africa running is not really a lifestyle to get or stay fit.  Since it is such a large continent many countries are poor and have very physical laborous jobs.  This can be an advantage in their ability to run.  The determination, culture and biology sets them apart. 

Why are Kenyans great runners and holding marathon records?  I want to know and pass what I find on to this blog.  This is just a test blog and more will be added soon and no later than Jan 16.  As of today the marathon record holder is by Dennis Kimette with the time of 2:02:57.  To put this in the speed of a 400M track like the one around a football field is about 1:10 a lap or a 4:40 mile pace. I would bet on this NDNU campus there are less than 10 people that can do this for one lap and less than 3 that can do this for a mile.  There are many other Kenyan athletes like Wilson Kipsand, Mary Keitany and Jemima Jelagat Sumgong that are placing in the top 3 finished winner big prize money over $50,000.  In Africa running is not really a lifestyle to get or stay fit.  Since it is such a large continent many countries are poor and have very physical laborious jobs.  This can be an advantage in their ability to run.  The determination, culture and biology sets them apart. The jobs are few