Malagasy Money

Malagasy money usually has more dirt on it than a 4 year old boy.

When it is clean, crisp and new, it is quite nice. This is a 100 ariary bill. It is like a US $100 except a US $100 bill can buy a lot and a 100 ariary bill can't. It is actually the smallest bill. Everything smaller is only in coins. That means instead of a $20 bill there is a $20 coin.

This is the largest bill, the 10,000 ariary note. It is worth about US $5. It isn't the biggest bill in the world. There is even a US $10,000 bill. But nothing beats the $100,000,000,000,000 bill from Zimbabwe. I am not making this up.

The 10,000 ariary bill is also special, because it is probably the only money in the world that features a dump truck and commemorates road construction.

Here is a 10 ariary coin. Let's compare it to a US $10 bill. How many cents or pennies are in a US $10 bill? I'll give you a second...right, 1,000. Now how many iraimbilanja (Malagasy pennies) are in a 10 ariary coin? 1,000. Nope. Try 50.

Almost every where currency is a dollar (1) and cents (100 parts of that 1) thing. There are only two countries in the entire world that do not break down their money into decimals. Mauritania and Madagascar. The base unit of Malagasy currency, the ariary, can be divided not into 100 equal sub units, but only 5. Each sub unit is called a iraimbilanja.

But in reality, that 10 ariary coin is worth about nothing. Or rather, it can buy about nothing. Even a small piece of hard candy usually costs 20 ariary. A lot of stores just ignore anything less than 100 ariary when it comes to making change. In over a year in Madagascar, I think I have used a coin or coins only twice to buy something. The economy runs on dirty bills not clunky coins.