the dark continent

[freckles_and_doubt]

I seem to be back in Cape Town. On Friday morning the nice cleaning lady came dashing into my study, a bit wild-eyed. She was gazing out the window while ironing, to see a car pull up in the road outside; two guys got out, smashed the back window of the neighbour's Conquest, nicked something from the back seat, leaped back into their car and drove away, all while she was putting down the iron and drawing breath to shout. Current thievery clearly tends to the high-speed.

While on the subject of postcolonial despair, during the UK trip we had tea with my aunt, who's doing the classic Zimbabwean thing of working in the UK for six months of the year looking after the elderly, in order to finance the other six months in Zim. She bought 17 of the following for a US dollar.

Comments

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is a very impressive banknote. I wonder how long until there isn't space for all the zeros. Or until they have to start making up numbers. ("One Brazillion Dollars...")

Do you know whether there has been any positive Tsvangirai Effect on the economy yet? I haven't been following closely.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

How many Brazillions in a Bajillion?

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

A squintillion.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

That's ten to the power of umpteen, right?

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

Pff, of course not. It's 10 to the power of a zillion. Your maths can like to be vrot :P.

Back to the Old Country

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

The interview with Tsvangirai in the Observer today (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/19/morgan-tsvangirai-zimbabwe-susan) and the report on Newsnight the other night (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8004247.stm) seemed quite optimistic about Zim. There is now food on the shop shelves, and the rampant inflation has been apparently quashed by standardising on the US dollar. Do they still print Zim dollars..?

Re: Back to the Old Country

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

Last I heard they'd suspended the Zim$ in favour of the US$ and the Rand when one of the above notes was insuffienct to purchase a loaf of bread :(.

1 Bajillion dollar notes

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

Phleep was wanting one for his dad but we didn't manage to find one in time. If your aunt has any to spare I'm sure Phleep would be grateful :).