Walk into any tienda (local store) in Quito and slap down a $20 bill – yes, a US $20 bill – and you’ll probably hear in response: ‘No tengo sueltos,’ I don’t have change.
It always takes a while to comprehend how a shop with well over a couple of hundred dollars in merchandise can’t have enough money in the till to give you simple change, but after living in Ecuador for nearly two years I’ve grown accustomed to this frustrating commercial tête-à-tête.
Hoping to avoid picking through baskets of fruit, overly sugared soft drinks or an assortment of canned foods in order to come up with enough merchandise to warrant a fair trade of goods for money, I almost always resolve myself to trying to unload that cumbersome $20 bill somewhere else and dig back into my wallet to pull out whatever lowly dollar bills I was hoping to use for a taxi ride. (Cab drivers nearly always suffer the same cash-strapped malady as their shop-owning brethren).
Finding change in Ecuador can be a struggle. There have been moments when shopkeepers have refused a $6 phone card sale because they didn’t have change for a $10 bill. And who can forget the time a cabbie waited more than 20 minutes as I went from shop to shop trying to get change for a $5 bill.
As frustrating as it can be, the simple challenges of commercial transactions here do provide some of the charm of this Andean country of nearly 14 million inhabitants. After all, what can be more fun than sending gringos on a wild-goose chase for the mythical till of change?
Love it or not, life in this equatorial country operates at a slower – and denominationally lower – pace.
On the rare occasions when a $5 bill or $10 bill is not met with an incredulous look, you can bet your soon-to-be change that you’ll get Sacagaweas in return. Yep, those very same ‘gold’ Sacagawea dollar coins (named after the Shoshone woman depicted on them) that most people in the US can’t pass off to unsuspecting victims fast enough.
The Sacagawea dollar was originally minted in 2000 as part of an effort by the US government to drum up interest in a dollar coin. The aim of the programme was to save approximately $500 million annually in printing costs associated with the production of $1 bills. With a longer shelf-life than their paper counterparts, the $1 Sacagawea coin seemed like a great way to promote environmental consciousness as well as fiscal responsibility, not to mention serving as a politically correct tribute to one of the best-known Native Americans.
The only catch was this: it seems US citizens prefer their money papered. Numerous articles have touched on the coin’s unpopular reception in the US. A USA Today article written in October 2008 reported as much as $92.7 million in Sacagawea coins are stashed away in US Treasury vaults. The US government has since moved on from Sacagawea’s visage in favour of $1 coins emblazoned with various Presidents’ faces.
It’s hard not to appreciate the irony behind one of America’s most famous trailblazers forging a new trail in this tiny South American country. The coin’s durability has received a much kinder reception here, with reports indicating that more then $500 million in Sacagawea coins have found their way into circulation in Ecuador since 2002. It seems the burnished appearance of the coin is more preferable to the all-too-soiled $1 bills that linger for just a little too long in circulation.
Of course, it wouldn’t hurt if that $92.7 million in Sacagawea coins collecting dust in US treasuries would find their way down to Ecuador. Then I just might be able to get that $6 phone card I’ve been eyeing.
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