Hope for Change

One of the hardest things to do in Mozambique is to get exact change. This is a problem that is exacerbated by an economy that ranges from legitimate points-of-sale, being stores or restaurants, and secondary markets and service oriented markets, being the kids selling ice cold coke out of a cooler on the street corner or a gratuity for the man with no hands that is watching your parked car making sure nobody steals the side-view mirrors.

For an example, try to go to the bank at ask for a hundred dollar bill. Don't write on a note to give to the teller that you need a hundred dollars and to not ask any questions, just withdraw it from your account like a normal person. Then go to work, or school, or the gym, or wherever it you you have acquaintances that is not a store. Start asking them for change to break your hundred. Chances are none of your friends carry cash any more, or that they don't have that much.

If asking your friends didn't work, try going to a convenience store. Your local 7-11 should do fine. Go ahead and buy a half-gallon of milk or something mildly healthy. Try to pay with your $100 bill. Just go right on and ignore the sign on the door that says they don't accept $50 bills. Yes, a hundred-dollar bill is NOT a fifty dollar bill, and while the employee there may appreciate your astounding level of logic, I have a feeling they won't and you'll be turned away.

Still no luck and that Benjamin is burning a whole in your pocket, huh? Try going to a car wash fundraiser. You know, the kind where the local high school debate team or the drama club or the mathletes are doing a car wash to raise awareness for...numbers? I don't know, I've been out of high school too long. The math club was the one with all the good looking girls, right?

Anyways, when you hand them a hundred-dollar bill to pay for a substandard car wash they'll start jumping up and down positively ecstatic because one-hundred is a lot of numbers, a fact of which you were already well aware. They won't hear you say that you only wanted to give ten over their shouts of joy as your cries for change are drowned out.

That's not a little bit of what it's like in Mozambique. That's exactly what it's like, except it's not cute math coeds washing your car but scruffy looking men using muddy rags. The point is that sometimes it's just impossible to get change.

The difficulty in obtaining change starts in the way people are paid. Anybody that works for the state (a huge portion) has automatic deposits set up for their bank account. There is not a system of electronic point-of-sales (credit/debit card) in Mozambique so everything has to be paid in cash. And when people's monthly expenses run about 120% of their income they just take it out from the bank in one fell swoop.

So many people needing to withdraw money causes a phenomenon every first of the month as people will take a whole day off work and sit in a line with their bank card to take out money for the handful of three dozen or so ATMs scattered across a town of a half-million people. Yes, everybody needs to take the money out on the first available day because waiting a week till there is no line would be too easy (sarcasm) and because there is no food left in the house.

The problem is, taking money out of the ATM leaves people with bank notes valued at 500 metical. This is not a problem when you go to buy a sack of rice (500) or a pile of beans (250). It does become a problem when you get thirsty from all the shopping and want to buy a coke (15) and then need to take the bus home (5) and then go to buy bread rolls for breakfast in the morning (2). It is impossible to ask for bread and hand a 500 note to somebody who will not even do 200 worth of business in a single day.

Folks that don't get paid through the bank will often be even unluckier, in a manner of speaking. If they have a minimum wage job and make 2,250. Their employer will hand then two-1000 notes (the largest denomination) a 200 note and a 50 note. Good luck getting change for those 1000 metical notes.

There are some tricks. Some people are able to just directly ask for change. Maybe take your 500 note down to five-100 notes. Other people take their large notes to church and try to make change in the offering plate. It is then just as embarrassing when they walk back from the offering with money still in their hand if there wasn't enough change. Other times, you figure out which stores always have change or which types of vendors always have change and you just always try to.

Downtown, most people selling prepaid phone credit (50 each) will have change change for a 500. They won't be happy about it, but they won't refuse your business. The bus back (5 one way) will have change for a 200 because of the high volume of travelers but only at busy times during the day, otherwise they may turn you down if you have a 50. The local market vendor selling sugar (30 a kilo) might have change for 200 near the end of the day, but definitely not at the beginning, and it's more likely for a 100.

The kid selling your cokes (15 each) will have change for a 50 at most. And your bread man never has change for more than a 20. The problem is also if you only want a single bread roll (2 each) or glazed donut hole (1 each) that is sold on the street corner in our village. They mostly have change, but when they don't I tricked into buying 5 donuts. Actually, come to think of it, I get tricked a lot.