Money, money, money

The money situation in Zimbabwe is crazy. I knew a little bit about the economic situation before I came here but not that much. Because the government got a bit Liberal with the money printing the Zim dollar was devalued so far that they had to start printing 100 TRILLION dollar bills. Prior to this trip I didn’t even know how many zeros were on the end of a trillion. The currency is now obsolete and they now use $US which means you can now buy the notes as souvenirs.
Perhaps the only good thing about the situation is that they don’t use anything smaller than one dollar notes so if you go to the supermarket, spend $3.15 and give them $4 you get 2 chomps, one lolly pop and 3 chewing gums as change.
With so many sweets and chocolate on offer its easy to forget how much destruction this caused for even a wealthy Zimbabwean. Wally, our guide from Matopo is in his late 60s but cannot give up work because despite having a pretty decent job, saving all his life and keeping a pension has no money. By then end of the economic disaster his entire life savings were worth the equivalent of US$6.

50 TRILLION dollars

Money, money, money

Harare, Zimbabwe