Currency counting

We’ve counted so many banknotes on this trip that my fingertips are sore. With the plummeting value of the South Sudanese pound and the paralysis of the banking system it’s been very difficult to access enough local currency to buy everything we need to buy and pay everyone we need to pay. We are trying to maintain staff salaries in dollar equivalent values, which means the costs stay the same for us, but acquiring the volume of notes has entailed much negotiation with various townsfolk and rummaging in black plastic bags in the dark corners of the market. We’ve had Stephen the mechanic’s brother up at the house giving us piles of 10 pound notes (worth about 10 American cents) covered in engine oil, ‘Mad’ Roda haranguing us all week to change money at her mattress shop, ‘Soapy Helen’ (a Kenyan woman who peddles soap on a bicycle) changing $100 worth and asking us to give her our car or get her a visa to come to the UK and finally another shopkeeper called Biyo who gifted us a pair of wellington boots and a poncho as there was an almighty downpour as I was in her shop. Cheap plastic and the tropics do not mix and the combination was not sweat-friendly.

People want the dollar notes as they are much more valuable with the South Sudanese pound continuing to fall, yet they still try and get the best exchange rate, claiming it has improved in the last few minutes. Mad Roda drove a particularly hard bargain and I’ll be avoiding her poker face on future visits.