Shopping in Rumbek







Yesterday I went with my Italian friend Carlotta to check out, for the first time properly, Rumbek’s market. It was a very entertaining experience, with some scary moments such as when we passed by the butchers’ sector (take a careful look at the above pics to understand why). But the funny thing was that after more than 2 months I finally realized that many products I totally ignored are for sale here, although for incredibly expensive prices. Who would have said, for instance, that a pineapple here in the very hearth of Africa can cost 9 USD/piece, as much as in Tokyo’s fanciest department stores. Instead this seems to be the case here in South Sudan, where the land is incredibly fertile (I know it through first hand experience, as in the past two weeks in the school garden we have planted a whole bunch of yummy vegetables) but where nobody still plants anything (and here we could discuss the reasons for this but I won’t go into this now).

Something very impressive which deserves a few words is the unique currency system adopted here in South Sudan. Currently the Government of Sudan is replacing the old Sudanese currency, the dinar, with the new Sudanese Pound - as the dinar was seen as part of the 'arabisation' process imposed by the Kharthoum government. This would not seem such a complicated issue, if the predecessor of the dinar - the 'old' pound wasn't still being used, creating confusion between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ pound. In Rumbek the local government has been trying to get rid of the old pounds with many actions, including replacing the old banknotes with new ones and then setting the old ones on a huge fire in the main square of the city. Except that some people owning some of the old pounds keep showing up and sometimes this creates fights. But this is just one part of the story. In some areas of South Sudan, like the Lakes State (of which Rumbek is the capital) shops commonly accept Kenyan Shillings and US Dollars (provided that their date of issue is from 2003 on – I never understood why) and in some border areas even Ugandan Shillings. It is not difficult to imagine how complicated it is for local sellers to list prices in 3 currencies and for the customer to carry 3 different currencies in the wallet and trying not to be ripped off too much by the arbitrary exchange rates. Anyway, for those of you who are interested to read more about this you can find here an article published by Reuters some weeks ago.