The Oracle: Africa April 2014 | Page 17

Why Choose Our Route?

This route is a lot more safer than the rejected one in terms of physical features as well as cultural characteristics. The old route went through at least two mountain ranges, over the Sahara Desert, over the Great Rift valley, over Lake Victoria, and over at least two rivers. Our proposed route goes through minimal mountainous terrain, the only part that is mountainous being the northwest part of Cameroon, and even though our route goes over the White Nile and the Blue Nile twice each, it is still less expensive than the other route. Other than the Congo River, the White and Blue Nile, and the slight mountainous region of northwest Cameroon, our route has almost no other physical obstacles. This only poses a threat in the middle of the route. The rest of the route is obstacle free so travel across Africa is quicker, safer, and less cost.

The culture of the cities along our routes only changes minimally at the middle of the route. In Mali, the main religion is Muslim, while in Côte d’Ivoire the Muslim percentage decreases and the Christian percentage increases. In Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia the Muslim percentage goes back up, but soon loses to Indigenous Beliefs for the rest of the route. These cultural characteristics do not pose

that much of a threat to the building of the highway and the traveling on the highway. The main languages of the first few countries is French, but changes halfway throughout the route. Cultural changes are not a big problem between these two religions and languages.

The economic value of the rejected route is a lot less than our route. Our route costs less, due to the amount of money that going over rivers costs compared to the cost of building on mountains. For the continent of Africa, our route would definitely benefit the continent more than the rejected route because of the locations it goes to. Ghana and the west coast of Africa has a lot more disease than the rest of the continent, so transport of medicine to these countries would be a lot easier. Also, the GDP of the countries that are on the route will rise exponentially because of all of the tourists and attention from the newly constructed highway.