Dollar for two a la kombi
“Dollar for two” has taken on a whole new dimension in Harare.
At first, the phrase – which has recently become popular since Zimbabwe’s conversion to using US dollars – only applied to buying foodstuffs like packets of crisps and biscuits which were priced at 50 US cents (which hardly anyone in Zimbabwe has).
But now, even the kombi drivers are using it. Yes, if you want to get on a kombi around Harare these days, you must either have a companion travelling with you (so that you pay the round figure of one dollar) or have 50 cents, or 5 rands on you.
It seems that the kombi drivers who had been tolerating passengers making use of the Zim dollar equivalent of 50 cents – which is 3 trillion dollars – have since tired of the worthless currency.
And so if you happen to be travelling alone these days and only have US dollar notes on you, you have to be sure to latch yourself onto a fellow passenger who has a coin on them – or else find some other way to travel.
A friend of mine recently had to walk all the way from Avondale to Hatfield after he failed to produce changed money in order to get on a kombi.
“I had two options,” he said. “Either I was going to get on the kombi and pay my dollar note and leave my change with the driver, or I was going to walk.”
The second option – although gruelling – was more appealing to him. Some kombi drivers say that if you don’t have change, they can write you a receipt so that you can travel on that the next time. But many passengers aren’t buying that.
Where exactly are passengers meant to get 5 rands for travel in a coinless economy? And why won’t kombi drivers accept those trillions anymore? After all, all they do is continue to circulate among passengers as change. I wouldn’t be surprised if very soon, kombi fares are pegged at one dollar – just another headache for so many Zimbabweans who are fighting just to get by.