Wednesday, April 4, 2007
The currency in Haiti is a bit confusing. They have Gourdes and Haitian Dollars. One Haitian Dollar is 5 Gourdes. One US Dollar is about 37 Gourdes (that's the rate I got), so 7.4 Haitian per US Dollar. Even though the bills and coins are only in Gourdes, people use Haitian Dollars when selling and buying stuff. For example, if a soda costs 30 Gourdes, the vendor will tell you 6 dollars, so you have to do the math and give 30 Gourdes. Some places will tell you in US Dollars, like the phone company I went to today. Since I bought a cellphone in Kenya last year, I just needed a SIM card. The SIM card at a company cost $11. US dollars, I had to confirm. I only had Gourdes with me, so they told me 95 Haitian Dollars, which doesn't match my rate at all, but I was busy figuring out which bills to use that I didn't realize it was more than US$11 (only about $1.84 though). I was a bit surprised that it cost so much for a SIM card. In Kenya, one costs Ksh100 (about $1.43, even less than the amount I got ripped off today).
So now I have a working phone, but I forgot to buy a card to add minutes to it, so I can't make any calls yet. Receiving is free. I was bummed that they don't have WAP. In Kenya I could use my cellphone to go online through WAP. Even thought it's terribly slow, being connected at all is a world of difference compared to being totally disconnected. I'm beginning to miss the internet. It was a bit of an abrupt disconnection. I hope there is an internet cafe where I can plug in my laptop... and I hope I can find one. No one around me seems to be using the internet here.
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