dirty money and money laundering

Before I headed to San Francisco a few weeks ago I realized that I needed to pull out my old familiar greenbacks. (The trip, by the way, was more than worth the 30 hours there and 36 hours back of flying. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I only wish that I could have been there longer and gotten to see more people- and a public apology to all those that I didn’t get to see.) Tanzanian shillings, though they are colorful with cute and cuddly animals, aren’t exactly useful in the states. (The largest bill here is the pinkish 10,000 note, which is worth about $8.)

So I went into my bags and grabbed my foreign currency. I started to count out a few bills when I realized that there was suddenly a horrible stench in my room. I looked around my room and outside the windows, wondering where this putrid smell had come from… only to realize that it was coming from the bills in my hand. All of my money was moldy- it literally had mold growing on it. I could barely separate some of the bills because they were so damp and stuck together.

Ahh… mold. It’s everywhere here. Everywhere. It grows on the outside walls, it grows on inside walls, it grows on suitcases and bags, it grows on money. I once left a half-full jar of spaghetti sauce in the fridge and in a week it was covered in mold, and not little white and green spots of mold- every free surface was covered. (Which usually takes at least a few weeks in the states- maybe months to grow as much as there was in this jar.) Basically anywhere there’s humidity (which here is anywhere there’s air) and a lack of ventilation/circulation, there’s going to be mold.

On the bright side, I learned a lesson of always leaving my fan on and my windows open. And the green and brown mold growing on the white walls outside actually makes them look pretty cool. I like to think that it gives them color and texture. (But if it appears on the walls of my room I’m sure that I’ll feel a little differently.)

But to conclude the story of the dirty money, I decided to leave almost all of the moldy bills here since I was too embarrassed to take them to the states. So today I washed them and dried them on my bed, under my fan. Who would have thought that I would have starting laundering money in Africa?