Zimbabwe Forced Back to Barter Age

Every fortnight Makaitei Musakwa, 45, catches one of her chickens, picks up some of the maize she has grown, and sets off for the village mill to have the maize ground into mealie-meal, Zimbabwe’s staple food.

“It is difficult for me to raise the money that the miller charges … I have nowhere to get it from,” said the widow who looks after four children of her own as well as two nephews. “He charges a chicken to grind for me twice.”

Barter trade has been common practice in Zimbabwe since crippling hyperinflation rendered the local Zimbabwe dollar all but worthless. Economists stopped measuring inflation after it hit 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent – 65 followed by 107 zeros – and in February 2009 the economy was officially “dollarised”.

Phasing out the local currency and introducing the United States dollar, South African rand and Botswana pula as legal tender has helped rein in inflation, but those currencies are seldom available in remote areas like Mutoko district, some 70km from the capital, Harare, where Musakwa lives.

“Imagine, after my fuel supplier gets the chickens from me, he uses them to buy goats, sheep or any other form of livestock, that he in turn either sells for cash or passes on to the next dealer, who decides what to do with them,” he said.

Gomo also sells second hand clothes at the village flea market. He trades the chickens for clothes, which he gets from truck drivers going to and from neighbouring Zambia along the nearby highway, as well as other goods like grain and seed, while some villagers offer to work on his fields.