Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Seeing Green

A kina shell used for money in the past;
image courtesy of the British Museum
I stared at the paper in my hand in disbelief.

“It’’s...” I searched for the best word. “It’s so green!” 

The other people waiting by the cash windows in our Ukarumpa finance office chuckled at my amazement. I slowly fingered the first US money that I’d seen in two years. The texture, the images...and all so green! How would I be able to tell the different bills apart?

In Papua New Guinea, the currency is called kina (PGK). It’s named after the shell money that was used before Westerners introduced bills and coins. In fact, the K1 coin still has a hole in the middle (very convenient for identification by feel, I might add), to represent how the shells were hung on long strings; the longer the string, the higher the value. There are 100 toea to a kina, just like dollars and cents. Currently, the kina to US dollar rate is approximately 2:1, so K10=$5 US.

PNG money is quite beautiful, in my opinion. Not only is there a rainbow of colours, but each bill is engraved with cultural symbols that carry significance in this country. Finally, I find the sizing quite logical: the bigger the coin or bill, the higher the value with none of this weird dime business. :)

The coins are, from the bottom, 5, 10, 20, 50 toea and 1 kina; there is a K100 bill as well, but I don't have one :)

Of course, since the finance office incident a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been slowly becoming reaccustomed to US money and credit cards, but I’m afraid I still look in purse and the first word that comes to mind!