ForumGarden

Read something the other day on the now non existent Zimbabwean currency. After years of having to pay like a gazillion trillion Zim dollars for a loaf of bread, the unit of currency there is now the South African Rand and the US$ However a big problem is the lack of coins of these currencies, especially the American coins.

Now apparently one of the most travelled bus routes in Harare costs 50c U.S, but the bus drivers have no coinage for change. To the average Zimbabwean, 50 cents is a lot of money so there is no way they are gonna be happy paying a dollar for a 50c bus ride. Commuters have threatened bus drivers with grievous bodily harm if they could not give them the correct change. The bus company has tried issuing promissory notes but this has not gone down very well with the masses.

So the drivers have now come up with a solution? of their own which sort of works provided an even number of commuters alight from the bus at the bus stop. They now hand over a dollar bill to every second passenger who then has to go to the Zimbabwean version of the corner store with a fellow commuter. At the store they must decide on what they are going to purchase for their one US$ … often some cookies or a meat pie, which they then divide (hopefully equally) and eat.

Yep like the man said; “There is always something new out of Africa

That's Interesting because I watched a doco very recently about the times there was a shortage of Roman coins and a similar situation In the Channel Islands

Wow! the entrepreneurial spirit just hit me.

I have a ton of quarters.

I can carry them over there and sell them. Say, seven quarters for 2 bucks.



I could make enough to pay for the trip.