The villages, farms, and scrub-covered fields of southern Chad do not inspire visions of great wealth. The villagers, mostly farmers, live in small one-room huts with brown thatched roofs and walls of yellow, sun-baked brick. The tallest objects in the landscape are the mango trees, standing like church steeples over clearings that serve as village squares. It's a pre-industrial economy, with few cars, telephones, electric lights, TVS, or refrigerators. Only a few Chadians can afford a metal pushcart or a cow to pull the plow through their fields of corn, millet, and manioc. Indeed, with annual per capita income of $230, Chad is one of the poorest countries on earth.
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