To change, or not to change...that is the question!

It is the question indeed. Or at least it is the question du jour! “Change what?” I hear you ask. Forex, of course!

Yesterday I heard that world-renowned Zimbabwean musician, Oliver Mtukudzi, will be performing at the Harare International Conference Center this weekend. The ticket cost? A mere $100 million for pre-booked tickets; $200 million at the door! No big deal, right?

Right! Unless you don’t have hundreds of millions to throw away on a night out.

But this is where the dilemma of being a foreigner (with the requisite “forex,” or foreign currency) becomes an issue. Do I pass up a chance at watching this incredible musician for a matter of US$4? Just because I don’t have the Zim cash on hand? Or do I suck it up and change the forex and go to the concert? The problem with changing forex is that you know you won’t be able to buy it back (hence my panic in my previous posting!)

I decided it was worth the US$4 and today managed to get the incredible rate of Z$25,000,000:US$1…so guess I’ll be going to see Tuku on Saturday! That is, if the tickets haven’t sold out……but what are the chances of that in these times of hyperinflation?!

"How is it in Zimbabwe?"

This is a question I often get asked -- or variations thereof. "What is life like there?" "How do you live in Zim?" "How do you survive?" "Why are you there?"

Well, I won't attempt to answer all of those questions, but I can answer what my life is like:

Unfortunately a lot of it comes down to economics, and I would like to illustrate this by a couple of examples. (now, I give these examples ACUTELY aware that I live a very privileged life compared to millions of people living here...so although these things affect me, imagine the person who is earning 1/100th of what I am and has a family to feed)

My last post was about being a billionaire. Ha ha ha....

Last week I decided I better renew my British passport, as it expires in March. I was delighted to learn I could pay for the renewal in Zim dollars (or Zim kwatchas, as we often refer to them...!) I called AND emailed the British Embassy to check on the Zim$ amount and was told to come in and renew it before Monday, as the price would be adjusted on Monday. The renewal fee was Z$1.5 billion (now, I am earning a bit over a billion/month...so you do the maths!) But that was OK, I had been paid for a music gig in US$, so I arranged to change some money at a very high rate -- Z$20million:US$1, which almost covered the full renewal fee.

So Friday morning, rushed around trying to avoid traffic in town (because my car fanbelt has broken and I can't afford to fix it!) and met up with my reliable forex trader; changed the money; ran downtown to the British Embassy. Of course the elevator wasn't working, so I ran up the eight flights of stairs to get to the Consular offices. Handed in my papers and pile of Zim dollars, only for the woman behind the counter to say "Sorry, our fees went up today to Z$4.5 billion." Ahhh........!!!! So I promptly ran down the eight flights of steps and went back to work. And spent the next hour making sure I could change my Zim dollars back into US$ -- which I will change in a few weeks when the rate flies up enough for me to renew my passport! Crazy.


Then there was the saga of the packet of chips. On Saturday morning I met with a few friends for coffee, and had popped into the supermarket to pick up some groceries. I didn't pick any up, because I was horrified at the prices: a 150g packet of local chips was being sold for Z$55million!!! A HUGE amount of money here (well, at least it was last week!) But one of the friends I met assured me that at another supermarket they were going for a meagre $20million. So after coffee I rushed off and bought a few packets, narrowly missing the price increase there -- by the afternoon they were also charging $55million!!


So what is life like here? Yes, we may be having our big build-up to the March 29 elections. But on a day-to-day basis, 100,000% inflation reduces all of us to simply rushing around trying to beat the daily price increases, and stretching the fixed amount in our pockets to the upwardly-rising costs!