Thanks for the clues, but I think there is more than meets the eye, too.
Some of these vendors are doing windfall business taking orders, and cash at
an amazing rate. It seems quite improbable that they are almost always short
cash on hand, even 200 or 500 shillings. All this off site change making
takes place in the dark. If there is some kind of underground banking going
on it is amazing how it all happens without any visible records.

"Eupe-mbwa (Wh1t3d0g)" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 12:29:20 -0700, "none" wrote:

I was recently visiting Tanzania and encountered a mystery for which I
can
find no answer. It is about getting change for small purchases from
street
vendors.
snip change mystery

Interesting observation! The only reason I can think of offhand is
that from my experience, *nobody* has change (ie coins or small
denomination notes) because most Zanzibaris have little money and
tourists almost always present large denomination notes for their
purchases. It's sometimes a clever marketing excercise, in that small
village shops conveniently have no change so you buy more from them to
avoid hanging around while the shopkeeper sends a boy running around
the village to look for it! This system works extremely well but
sometimes, inexplicably, they will tell you to pay later when you
yourself have smaller change, though again this places an obligation
on the customer to come back and perhaps buy something else!!
In truth I suspect that many Zanzibaris genuinely live from hand to
mouth and money is spent as soon as it is earned, perhaps the vendor
was paying off a debt to another stallholder?
Maybe there's an unspoken system of "have exact fare ready please" in
action which innocent tourists are unaware of?
And of course, in Africa, sometimes it's just better not to ask!
--

.--~~,__
:-....,-------`~~'._.'
`-,,, ,_ ;'~U'
_,-' ,'`-__; '--.
(_/'~~ ''''(;