- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- Zimbabwe's banks are apparently in trouble and bankers
and chartered accountants met recently to talk about what do with all those
pesky zeroes that are causing the problem and clogging up their works.
It seems that standard computer software is designed to cope with figures
in millions and even billions but starts getting confused when having to
deal with fifteen digit figures. It's the trillions that are apparently
the problem and these are now part of regular transactions. So a proposal
is being made to have three digits dropped from our currency. Instead of
a thousand dollars being a thousand dollars, it will be just one dollar
and will be called a Kilo Dollar. Perhaps calling it a Killapsed Dollar
would be more to the point.
-
- This is the latest example of just how utterly ludicrous
our economic situation has become in Zimbabwe - inflation of over a thousand
percent, bank transactions in trillions, town budgets in something called
quadrillions and simple dollars that aren't really dollars anymore.
-
- To ordinary people who don't really understand the logistics
of a collapsed currency, this news comes as just another head shaking confusion
in our chaotic lives. Most of us have hardly come to terms with the logistics
of doing ordinary things like paying bills. If we are paying in cash we
find ourselves walking around with carrier bags, duffle bags, plastic sacks
and even suitcases literally filled with notes. Its a huge relief to get
to where you are going without being mugged because its just not that easy
to hide a sack of money.
-
- Although, these days, I suppose even muggers must have
to think in terms of wheelbarrows at the very least. The next mission is
to get the timing right so that you pay bills when the electricity is on
otherwise the money counting machines aren't working, the computers that
write receipts aren't working and you spend hours waiting in queues, your
arms getting longer and longer, weighed down by heavy bags of money.
-
- Paying bills by cheque has its own set of problems too
and we have had to master the art of using smaller and smaller handwriting.
Most standard personal cheques have a five inch (13 centimetre) line on
which to write the amount in words that the cheque is for. Nowadays its
not unusual to get bills for multiple millions of dollars.
-
- This month for example medical aid companies have increased
their rates by a whopping eighty five percent. This makes a very small
family contribution to a standard private medical scheme require over twenty
five million dollars. I find myself having to do practice runs before I
even open the cheque book - just to make sure I can squash up the words
enough so that they all fit into those five inches. You try and write in
five inches (13cms) all these words: Twenty five million eight hundred
and ninety two thousand five hundred and fifteen dollars and fifty five
cents. It's not possible or feasible really and so we all just round everything
up, no one says thank you, no one offers change - its just the way life
has become here now.
-
- Everything in Zimbabwe, even writing a cheque, has become
an exercise in extremes - miniscule handwriting for massive amounts of
money to pay small fractions of huge monthly expenses. So, from the land
where we already have trillions and quadrillions but perhaps will soon
have both dollars and kilo dollars, thank you for reading. Until next week,
apologies for unanswered emails - there are simply not enough hours in
the day when the electricity is on!
-
- With love, cathy.
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- cbuckle@mango.zw Copyright cathy buckle 22 July 2006
http://africantears.netfirms.com My books "African Tears" and
"Beyond Tears" are available from: orders@africabookcentre.com
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