Sat 9th April
As I was shown to my room this morning I observed something I've observed before in Africa. Through the window with no glass I found myself sharing the sights sounds and smells of the neighbourhood with the whole community around me. In particular, this meant that when I tried to get to sleep at 7am, there was lots of noise! Fortunately I was exhausted and that didn't matter.
In the afternoon Mohammed and Brima took me to get money changed and buy some goods.
Although I was only changing USD200, I received a massive pile of notes back, none of which had a denomination higher than Le 10,000 (between £1 and £2) I keep my cash in (what should be) a discreet money belt under my trousers to reduce the risk of theft. However this is now characterised by an unsightly banknote-shaped bulge in my trousers. Readers of this blog will be pleased to hear that I have not taken a photo of the bulge in my trousers (!). But here's a picture of the 2 US banknotes and pile of cash that constitutes the equivalent sum of money in Leones. And I've also included a picture of Brima handling another load of banknotes that needed to transported around the provinces.
I asked Brima and Mohammed whether the small denominations caused any problems. Apparently it is common to pay for large transactions (e.g. a house purchase) with cash. This may cost something like Le 30 million, so imagine paying for something by handing over 3000 banknotes!
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