In Which The Buying Of Beans Requires Next To No Beans
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 23/Oct/2010 06:00, 34 days ago
 I take a new route into town (exciting! Except the road is, for all intents and purposes, identical to mine) and then veer off Hangha Road to the right where there are some market stalls. Despite claims that they have various‘zones’ it’s all very haphazard, and they have trainers next to gold necklaces next to tie-dyed household goods next to baskets of chillies. I eventually come to the end and find a few food stalls clumped together, selling green leaves (Cassava leaf? Potato leaf? Grass?!) and beans. I decide to be brave and buy some that look like a cross between a butterbean and a kidney bean, and am astonished at the price: 3 block (300 Leones...about 5p) for a cup. In the supermarket they are 5000 Le a can. Clearly I’ve been missing a trick. As I head towards the bank I spot little tubs of tomato puree, arranged into delicate pyramids at a number of road-side stands. I pay 1000 Le for one of these in the supermarket but maybe it’ll be like the beans and costs less than 1/10 of the price here? I check. It doesn’t. It costs exactly the same, which makes me wonder how they ever sell any? Whenthe price is the same, I think I’d prefer to buy mine from a nice air conditioned supermarket than from a table set up on a dusty road in direct line of the scorching sun.I go to the bank and check my balance. Vickynatu told us a partial truth: she has paid us for half of the month, just hasn’t emailed to confirm. Still, I have a withdrawable balance now, so I move to the next queue and, having learnt my lesson last time, enunciate loudly and clearlySeven hundred THOUSANDwhen it’s my turn. They count in 250’s here, so I get two bundles of pre-counted 5000 Le notes (with 250 000 in each) and some loose 10 000 Le notes to make up the rest. It just about fits in my bag, though there’s no way my purse would close if I put it in there, so it goes in the secret pocket at the back that Tesco clearly built into this model of handbag precisely for this event.A Short Lesson In Salone MoneyThere are two coins, 100 Le and 500 Le (akaone blockandfive block)There are four notes, 1000 Le, 2000 Le, 5000 Le and 10 000 LeSince the exchange rate is 6200 Le to£1, this means their biggest note is approximately £1.40. Sierra Leone is an entirely cash driven society: no cards taken outside the capital, and not all that many places within Freetown will take them either. ATMs are non-existent. That means whenever I want money, I have to queue up at the bank. Since this is an ‘experience’, it is easier to take as much as possible in one go, rather than return multiple times.As a‘volunteer’ I earn a lot less than some others here, and yet the fewest notes I would require to cover my monthly allowance of 1 365 378 Le is 137, and that’s if they give me mainly 10 000 Le notes. They don’t, usually managing to slip in some 2000s (today being the exception) which, ok, isjust as well since Ocada drivers wouldn’t be able to change a 10 000, nor would most market stalls, but it does explain why I have bricks of cash at the start of each month which dwindle bit by bit, day by day.Incidentally, 1 365 378 Le is a ridiculous monthly stipend since there are not even coins for that full amount. The 378 is equal to about 6p. Seriously, wouldn’t you just round? (Thought: maybe rounding lesson needed? I am becoming an expert on these)Here endeth the lesson.I continue on to Choitram’s and start buying things because I want to know what they are. Terrifyingly, this is how I get my kicks these days. I buy some ‘Pandan’ Swiss Rolls. Still no idea what they are (the English ingredients helpfully list ‘Pandan flavour’) but for 8000 I can find out. (I Wiki it later...it’s a kind of plant. Well, duh!) I also buy Margarine in a plastic pouch because I still can’t justify spending £6 on Extra Virgin Olive Oil (and refuse to buy the screenwash they pass off as non-Virgin stuff).Last night I slept in fits and starts. Every time I awoke, I flipped on my torch to locate Mr Gecko Man. He was never in the same place twice: behind my bed, over my window, near the door, by my 'library', trying to blend in to the woodwork (which he does remarkably well) or hide in  the corner where the buttercup yellow wall meets the white ceiling (less so). This morning he was gone or else in hiding. All day long I keep expecting his beady eyes to light up and give me a fright, but all day long he remains hidden. I almost miss the little guy.