Global - Technology - Review

Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest nations, is a low-lying, landlocked country in West Africa. It is crossed by a number of rivers which are liable to flood in the rainy season. Some of the wetland areas are of international importance. The climate is tropical. There are over sixty ethnic groups. Folk music is popular, and a local instrument is the kora, a type of lute made from half a gourd with a stretched goatskin cover. It is one of a number of instruments used by the village storytellers or djelis, for whom oral tradition is an important means of transmitting history and culture. Many instruments are on display in the National Museum of Music in the capital, Ouagadougou. Centre of the powerful Mossi Kingdoms from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, the city contains a remarkable Romanesque cathedral, built of mud bricks. The country has a remarkably diverse fauna. In the National Parks are many of Africa’s big animals, including West Africa’s largest population of elephants.