Congo is in a prolonged economic crisis and in the last several years her people have suffered from hyper-inflation. Imagine a loaf of bread at the supermarket going from $1.50 to $5 overnight and up to $18 next month. People get hungry, then currency becomes irrelevant and the black market really takes over. I’d quit my day job and start baking bread full time. What they’ve done here (as well as in several other nations with similar problems) is link the local currency to the dollar in an effort to stop the bleeding. Moreover, in Congo they accept dollars just about anywhere. If you pay in dollars you may likely get change back in both US and Congolese francs. It makes it a little tricky to ensure that you are getting correct change (francs are about 440 to the dollar).
But here’s where it gets wacky. First, they don’t take US one dollar bills. Sometimes they try to give them out as change, but they generally don’t take them. Before I came over here I was told to bring only crisp, new bills. As most of you know I only had a month or so to pack up the possessions I wanted to keep and take them to my grandparents’ house, sell everything else, and resign from two jobs. Money was tricky during that time as I was selling things and buying essentials for life out here. My credit union couldn’t provide new bills but they gave me the pick of what they had and so I spent some time with the teller just looking over their stock of bills avoiding rips and discolorations and goodness gracious, nothing with a little presidential head.
Fast forward to last Saturday. I’m in the grocery store check out lane. I hand a large bill to the cashier. She gives it a good look and starts passing her finger over a tiny hairline rip where the bill has been folded. We’re talking about a whole millimeter of rip. I’m standing there watching her double or triple the size of the rip by playing with it before I realize what is going on! She hands it back and says she can’t take it, it’s defective. “That one is no good.”
Tonight we went to the pharmacy so I could buy a cache of medicines to cure the most common Central African ailments. They’re undoubtedly much cheaper here in Kinshasa than they’ll be in Kisangani and more likely to be adequately potent. I thought I’d be slick and give my bill another try. The pharmacy technician opened the cash drawer and I thought I was home free. I felt like a real winner. Then she suddenly handed it back and said casually, “this one is ripped”. Strike two.
Now I have to be fair. The reason no one will take such bills is that the banks also refuse them. The banks here are extremely difficult to deal with. In our work we deal with this every day. Another exercise in imagination: There are no automatic tellers, no online banking, no drive through, and it takes two hours on average in line to make a simple deposit. Oh yeah, and slightly ripped money is worthless, they won’t put it into your account. In their defense they are afraid of counterfeit US currency and it must be a legitimate concern. When they took a more crisp bill at the pharmacy, they wrote the serial number down in a log book. That seemed a little obsessive-compulsive.
Ironically the Congolese currency is the dirtiest stuff on earth. I think it’s the dirt on it that holds it together. Its really brown. Apparently when they count it in the bank they wear gloves and face masks. But as long as they can read the number on its shades of brown, it’s good as gold.
OK, I am a little frustrated by this wackiness, and a little eager to put the rest of my cash under a magnifier to see how much is legal tender here (I think I am fine, by the way). I’ll be able to spend my defective money in most other parts of the world or I’ll trade it with visiting colleagues when they are going back to the USA. Ultimately my frustration over silly little rips in money more than pales in comparison to the plight of the Congolese poor and the poor everywhere. I can’t complain. I’m blessed to be where I am and getting to do the work that I am doing. But if someone tries to give me dollar bills as change, I am going to quickly look them over and say, “sorry, I don’t accept those!”
If anyone knows how I can glue up the cracks in my money, let me know. If anyone wants to join me in lobbying congress to add more elastic to the recipe for dollars, I’ll pass the petition.
Here is what is funny about your story: When I read ‘I handed her a large bill’, I automatically thought, ‘oh, like $10′. Which, maybe it was 10. In Kenya that would be a lot of money. But maybe other Americans are capable in thinking in increments higher than 10, is all.