It Makes the World Go Round, Part 1

I have a whole new perspective on money, being here. In so many different ways.

For example. My money. Just getting change in your pocket is a huge ordeal- for me that is. See, my ATM card only works at one specific bank. It's about fifteen minutes walk away from school, which is no big deal I can go when I don't have class. So I walk past first a bunch of embassies (Korea, Liban, United Arab Emirates), turn the corner at the huge baobab and walk along the side of the on-ramp past a bunch of homeless families, mothers and children washing their clothes by the side of the road, eating lunch, begging for money. There's about three mothers with small children there at the gas station, cross the street and I'm at the glass-paned whitewashed CBAO bank. The ATM is in its own little room, and usually when I go it's not working, has a blank screen. So I go inside, the guy knows me by now, tells me to take a seat, the lady with the machine that pulls out money for me is on lunch break. If it's the last week of the month everyone's there because it's payday and the place is packed.

So I sit down in between two gorgeously dressed women in bright colors, and hug my backpack to my chest to lean on. The guard comes over and explains in Wolof to everyone sitting there that this girl here needs to just get some cash, she isn't here to deposit part of her paycheck, so that's why she didn't need to pick a number like the rest of them, so when the lady gets back from lunch I'm going next and they still have to wait because it won't take long. So after about half an hour she gets back and calls me up and it really wouldn't take long did I know my address. But I don't. So first I give her my ATM card, then the paper copy of my passport as ID, and then I explain that since it's stamped, it functions as my passport, it's official don't worry. And then I explain that the reason I didn't sign "Leah" on my card is that it's my middle name and not part of my signature, yes it's part of my real official name but I didn't sign it. And then I can't give them my address, I can tell them I study at WARC, I dont' know that address either but I can say it's in Fann neighborhood. And my phone number is 221 (Senegal) 77(cell phone) 745 8958.

And how much do I want, and can I get it in small bills? If I'm talking to the nice lady at the window, then yes I can, I can have small bills. If not, the machine gives me 10,000 CFA ($20) bills. And that is a problem.

Big bills are terrible. They burn a hole in your pocket. No one has change for a ten. The MyShop that has overpriced European snacks always *has* change, but never wants to give it because all the students stop by to break big bills, so you usually are stuck with the bitchy lady who will be COUNTING CHANGE and say "no, there's no change" even though you can see it. So then you go to the Casino supermarché and buy a grapefruit Fanta in a thick glass bottle and she sees you take out the purple bill and groans, and tells you that she can give you change this time but this is the last time she can do this for you. And then you wait while she walks over to the other cash registers and collects the correct amount of change, holding up everyone else in every other line to give you a fiver. And you try to go to the boutique to split the fiver and they send a boy to the next boutique to ask him, they ask customers if anyone's got change, and grumble the whole time.

So you have to spend money to get money you can spend, and then you have small bills so it doesn't matter if you buy a snack, it's cheap and you have change, and before you know it your money is gone. I am spending so much more than I thought I would simply because it's the way things work, being a student here. Even restaurants don't have change half the time. I'm saving up 2,000 CFA bills to take with me on my internship- if there's no change in Dakar I won't have a chance in Toubacouta. I wonder what it's going to be like on spring break.