Guyanese Things: Money

In Guyana, the currency is in dollars.  Guyanese dollars, naturally.  The exchange rate is about $200 Guy = $1 US.  Things are generally cheaper here, but not dramatically so.  I'd say on average things are about half as expensive, though it is pretty variable.  I've gotten a decent feel for how much things cost in Guyanese dollars, so I don't have to convert everything back to USD, but I'm also getting pretty quick at doing that.

The most interesting/frustrating thing about the money here is the denomination of the bills.  There are $20, $100, $500 and $1,000 bills.  (There are also coins - $1, $2, $5, $10 but usually stores will properly round prices or wont even bother with change.  I've been given a $5 or $10 piece of candy instead of change on a few occasions.)  So the largest denomination is about $5 US.  This means when you're buying something expensive with cash, the physical stack of cash gets pretty large pretty quick.  A bicycle for example costs about $20,000 ($100 US), so if I do end up buying one, its going to be an interesting trip to the ATM.

So on top of the general weirdness of hearing that your dinner cost $2,000, teachers are paid in cash.  I'm receiving a stipend that is paid through the school of about $49,000 per month.  Due to paperwork delays (I'm told only missing one month is quite remarkable), this past month I received my stipend for both September and October, which totaled to about $98,000.  So I go into the office and one of the secretaries takes out massive stack of thousand dollar bills and counts out 98 of them.  I don't think I've ever seen that many bills in one place.  It was quite  a wad of cash, especially when you think that it is basically about $500 US.  So it would be like having $500 in $5 bills back home.

 Ballin so hard.