Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Dinner is $700???

The currency in Malawi is the Kwatcha  (MK).  I'm still trying to get used to it and it's been giving me a headache to translate everything from Kwatcha to dollars and back.  I'm no math whiz.

Tonight, for example, I'm chipping in on the ingredients that the private chef will prepare for us for dinner.  I was asked for $700.  For a second I was thinking in dollars and then realized, no, that's Kwatcha, which means my share is about $1.75 USD.  Lunch today was 1,000MK, which means I paid about $2.50 USD for two pieces of barbecued chicken, some sauteed greens of some type (which were delicious) and a giant slab of nzima, which is to Malawi what tortillas are to Mexico, taro to Samoa, etc.

I also discovered that I can get a professional massage in my apartment for $12.50.  That works for me.

Here are some other prices of some of the stuff I bought at the grocery store this week:

$2.50     Old El Paso enchilada sauce (can you believe it??? I'm in heaven!)
$  .50     warm loaf of whole wheat bread
$  .35     yogurt
$  .35     granny smith apple
$5.50     liter of Malawian gin (actually pretty good)
$2.50     2 ltr of local brand soda (also pretty good)
$3.00     good sized chuck of butter
$ .75      six extra large eggs

What I didn't purchase was the cheddar cheese, which was about $15.  Unless I did the math wrong in my head.  Which is a definite possibility.

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