"Mama Lynda's Shop Account with Justin" is the title of the exercise book above. As Justin's biggest customer, I have the honour of having my own book, apparently !
Different denomination notes come in different colours and with different pictures on the front, tooPaying a monthly account here is not as simple as a quick online transaction, or a monthly debit order off your bank account - but more likely the ‘old fashioned’ way of having to stand in a queue with cash in hand, and wait your turn. Paying farm wages each month, is not that much different, either.
On our farm, monthly hand written records are kept in a grubby ‘Muster Roll’ book by the farm foreman (known as the ‘Bwana Shamba’) and paying month-end farm wages requires first ordering the cash (& correct change) from the city, and then collecting it and bringing it back to the farm. It is collected on different days of the month, in different vehicles and by different people so that we follow no set routine (as hubby has been shot at by ‘bandits’ which came across the Kenyan border when he was on his way back to the farm a couple of years ago – I kid you not !).
After the very busy harvesting season when we have several hundred casual labourers to pay aswell as our own permanent staff, the cash is flown in to our farm airstrip by light aircraft. (You can see a photo of our company ‘plane and read about/see our farm airstrip in my blog post over here).
The farm staff then line up outside the main workshop area, where the farm admin office is, and they sign for their wages which are placed in to small brown envelopes and given to them. For security reasons we also pay wages on different dates each month – this past Saturday happened to be the day we paid July wages, so there was a hive of activity on the farm that day ……
I have written before about Justin’s shop (you can read that blog post over here). Justin (or his girlfriend, Anna) waits at the workshop area when wages are being paid, to ensure that people settle their shop account debts with him immediately ! At the same time each month, he presents me with my account. All the items I’ve bought for the month are written up in a grubby exercise book with “Mama Lynda’s Shop Account with Justin” written on the front (see the photo above). Not everyone has their account written up in their own exercise book, but as his biggest customer, I have the honour of my very own book !
So, on Saturday I also set about paying Justin what I owed him …. which turned out to be quite a tidy sum - since my absence from the farm at the beginning of May (hubby had not bothered with paying the account whilst I was away ‘Wait for Mama to return’ he’d apparently told Justin ‘Mama is the only one who can check & pay it !’)
I thought that I’d also post a photo of what our local currency - the Tanzanian Shilling - looks like. Our highest denomination note is 10 000/= shillings, so you can imagine how ‘fat’ your wallet can get, when you are carrying a relatively small amount of money – our notes also come in 5000/=, 2000/=, 1000/= and 500/= and then our coins come in 200/=, 100/=, 50/=, 20/= and 10/=. To give you an idea, at the moment 1000/= Tanzanian shillings are equivalent to around .75c (US) and .45p (UK).
It also doesn’t take much to become a millionaire here (!!) as 1, 000 000/= Tanzanian shillings in your bank account, is equivalent to U$755 ! A millionaire ? A Billionaire ? Why ..... anything is possible in Africa !
On our farm, monthly hand written records are kept in a grubby ‘Muster Roll’ book by the farm foreman (known as the ‘Bwana Shamba’) and paying month-end farm wages requires first ordering the cash (& correct change) from the city, and then collecting it and bringing it back to the farm. It is collected on different days of the month, in different vehicles and by different people so that we follow no set routine (as hubby has been shot at by ‘bandits’ which came across the Kenyan border when he was on his way back to the farm a couple of years ago – I kid you not !).
After the very busy harvesting season when we have several hundred casual labourers to pay aswell as our own permanent staff, the cash is flown in to our farm airstrip by light aircraft. (You can see a photo of our company ‘plane and read about/see our farm airstrip in my blog post over here).
The farm staff then line up outside the main workshop area, where the farm admin office is, and they sign for their wages which are placed in to small brown envelopes and given to them. For security reasons we also pay wages on different dates each month – this past Saturday happened to be the day we paid July wages, so there was a hive of activity on the farm that day ……
I have written before about Justin’s shop (you can read that blog post over here). Justin (or his girlfriend, Anna) waits at the workshop area when wages are being paid, to ensure that people settle their shop account debts with him immediately ! At the same time each month, he presents me with my account. All the items I’ve bought for the month are written up in a grubby exercise book with “Mama Lynda’s Shop Account with Justin” written on the front (see the photo above). Not everyone has their account written up in their own exercise book, but as his biggest customer, I have the honour of my very own book !
So, on Saturday I also set about paying Justin what I owed him …. which turned out to be quite a tidy sum - since my absence from the farm at the beginning of May (hubby had not bothered with paying the account whilst I was away ‘Wait for Mama to return’ he’d apparently told Justin ‘Mama is the only one who can check & pay it !’)
I thought that I’d also post a photo of what our local currency - the Tanzanian Shilling - looks like. Our highest denomination note is 10 000/= shillings, so you can imagine how ‘fat’ your wallet can get, when you are carrying a relatively small amount of money – our notes also come in 5000/=, 2000/=, 1000/= and 500/= and then our coins come in 200/=, 100/=, 50/=, 20/= and 10/=. To give you an idea, at the moment 1000/= Tanzanian shillings are equivalent to around .75c (US) and .45p (UK).
It also doesn’t take much to become a millionaire here (!!) as 1, 000 000/= Tanzanian shillings in your bank account, is equivalent to U$755 ! A millionaire ? A Billionaire ? Why ..... anything is possible in Africa !
