denominations ...

one thing that has baffled me and my fellow travelers is the monetary denominations in Malawi. the smallest ‘paper money’ bill is 5 Kwacha … about 4 Cents Canadian. this doesn’t present too many problems; you get rid of these as tips or save up for a Coke (40 K). the bigger issue is that the largest bill in the country is 500 Kwacha, or C$4. this is a huge problem when you’re trying to pay for something expensive, or when you’re not going to see a bank again for a while. for example, when Gord and i stayed in Cape Maclear for eight days, we ran out of cash and had to do a day trip to the nearest city to hit a bank. i personally had to withdraw 60,000 Kwacha to pay for my Scuba course, my bar tab, and my future days of travel out in the Lake. with only 500 Kwacha bills to work with, i had one-hundred and twenty bills in my pockets for the drive back, each pocket bursting!

now add to this the fact that most transactions in Malawi use cash; Visa is almost never accepted, and bank transfers don’t seem to exist yet for the average consumer.

on Friday, my colleague Dr. Marana bought a used car. the price: 1.2 million Kwacha (C$10,000). the method of payment: cash, of course! since the exchange rate she was quoted at the bank was terrible, we drove to ‘see a guy’. we pulled up to his hardware store and were invited to sit with him at a desk behind the counter.

“how can i help you, my friends?”

“i need 1.2 million Kwacha, cash. i have a personal cheque”

“no problem, no problem” ...

rates where negotiated, an international account transfer replaced the cheque, and we were taken upstairs to the man’s office. [THUNK] “one-hundred thousand” [THUNK] “two-hundred thousand” [THUD] “three-hundred thousand” .... 1.2 million Kwacha handed to us in a plastic bag! it filled the plastic bag. it was a rather large bag. we nervously placed the bag in a backpack and made our way to the location chosen for the transaction: a shopping mall parking lot. the seller pulled up, entered out mini-van, the bag was displayed, and the swap made. it totally felt like a drug deal!

as a side note, i went to the post office today to mail a small package to Germany. the cost: 1280 Kwacha. the stamps i received: twelve 100 Kwacha stamps, one 50 Kwacha stamp, seven 4 Kwacha stamps, and four 1 Kwacha stamps ... the front of the package was completely covered, and so the rest had to be put on the back! ha