Saturday, March 15, 2008

Dollars or Naira, which is it?

The money in Nigeria is called Naira, pronounced Ny-ra. It comes in denominations from N1000 down N5. We have seen no coins. N5, N10, N50, N100, N200, N500, N1000 and some larger ones are the bills we have seen. The exchange is 110.9 Naira to the dollar. Our first Couples Exchange (spending money for the month) was $839 for N100,009. The first trip to the "grocery store" burned up N28, 500 of the stash. Later, that evening we purchased some produce from Susie, a Nigerian, who works the neighborhood with a small burlap bag full of thin, plastic bags of vegies. For example; a bag with 6 carrots in it. A bag with 8 very small potatoes. A real dirty cauliflower...we Jik'ed it and brushed it and boiled it and ate it. It tasted very much like a cauliflower. Our upstairs neighbors, the Wadsworths took us to their produce vendor and what an amazing difference. The vegetables looked good, the prices were much lower. Wadsworths like a "deal" and they have been very diligent shoppers. They are showing us where to shop. We'll try to get a picture of their vegetable guy's place. It is a curbside area (more like an alley). All of his merchandise is laid out on the ground by category. Fairly good presentation, but no stand, no advertising, on a side street and no frontage exposure, just good stuff. He made friends with Linda by giving her some free spring onions (green onion) and cilantro, plus he knocked N50 off since he didn't have the right change. They don't charge extra for organically grown things (or for the bugs, either).
More about the money. My driver's license required no test, no exam, just N7,000 and my passport picture. It appears one can purchase almost anything one wants in Lagos. Prescription Drugs without a prescription...you just need the name and the dosage. You go to the Pharmacy, ask for the item, pay the money and presto, you are in possession of the desired item. Pretty scary.
Small examples from grocery shopping: can of Tuna Fish N245, Heinz tomato ketchup (32 oz. N675), Dijon mustard N250, Olive oil (17 oz.) N1150, and a can of greens N210. We spent N1285 for powdered milk that will make 8 or 9 liters of milk. We also bought a small salt and pepper shaker set that looked like it came from the dollar store and spent N610, plus a cheapie soap dish cost N210. The reasons many items cost so much is that they are imported. Real estate is also very expensive here, so the cost of doing business would be high. We're glad that we can things to eat that we like. It's not exactly the same stuff, but we won't starve to death. It's kind of a fun challenge to put recipes together without all of the ingredients. Our chicken fajitas weren't too bad the other night. We had no cheese, sour cream, salsa, tortillas or refried beans. We did find good lettuce and used that to make a salad, so that is a relief. Now we just wish that we had our good salad dressings.

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