Week 1 back in Zim

The adjustment process has taken a bit of time, but I guess that is to be expected. In some ways I don't feel I've been away, picking up where I left off is fairly straightforward in terms of daily life, but things have also changed within the past 6 months. Most noticable is the legalisation of foreign currency in many places to pay for commodities and purchase goods. It's commonplace now to use USD or Rand in most outlets whereas before, though it was practiced, it was illegal.

I learnt today that only 2% of employed Zimbabweans get paid in forex, so the vast majority are still dependent on this rampantly inflating currency. An example of the affects of this from the past couple of days is that we wish to send a document by DHL courier to Harare. DHL doesn't accept forex and yesterday quoted a cost of $308 trillion Zim dollars for the job. By the afternoon it was $380 trillion and then this morning on arrival at the office the quote had increased to over $700 trillion. Seven. Hundred. Trillion. Dollars. Getting hold of that cash is difficult and time-consuming.

To add to the mind-boggling nature of the current Z economy, I hear that during the time I was away 10 zeros were chopped from the end of the numbers in an attempt to curb the inflation. So for a very short time numbers went back down to single digits ($2 for a loaf of bread etc) From this, the rate has already climbed back into the trillions...

Exhausting.