Money, Money, Money, MONEY!

Guinea's got issues. It's pretty apparent just about everywhere. But the only new issue that I haven't seen before is [boring as this may sound] inflation. I've never been a place where, for example, $1 dropped to the value of $.30 in less than two years.

The economy was so screwed up that the restaurant menus just can't keep up and end up taping new prices, layer after layer, on top of the old ones in the menus. Tonight's menu had atleast 10 layers.

My welcome lunch with four IRC coworkers ended with a stack of bills in bill holder that made the top stick up at atleast a 80 degree angle.

And the money exchange process is quite interesting: The IRC car pulls over on the side of the road and honks. A little man with a HUGE stack of money plays frogger darting across the road through the traffic to get to our window, where he gives us the rate. I've never been much into the black market until Guinea but the formal banks can't keep up with the inflated rate.

Then, he starts counting out stacks of 5000 Guinea Franc notes -- not by the note-- but by stacks of tens with the 10th notes as a folder for the other 9. That seems to be the way everyone now holds their money in Guinea. In packets of 10. I exchanged $100 and it would just barely fit into my purse. Geeeeeeeeeeeeez.