fake

What's got everyone worried is faked notes. Faked forex notes, that is, now that the Zimbabwean economy is almost totally dollarised.

Jeannette* has a shop in the Tselentis building. She left her workers on duty for an hour or two last week, (which was the first week of the new year. This year Zimbabweans aren't saying: Compliments of the season, they're saying: Complaints of the season.)

"In that time," she told a friend, "my workers had taken in three photocopied 100 rand notes and one fake 100 US note."

"It's the Nigerians and the Chinese. They're the ones faking things," complains Joyce, an 87-year old who wants us to examine her 50 US note "because the colour doesn't change when you tilt it to the light."

Traders are refusing -- for a reason known only to themselves -- US dollar notes issued in 1996. Our local Spar store refuses to accept my 50 US note because it has a 5 mm-high purple 15 stamped on it (and it's come straight out from England and is most certainly not fake). Having fought for 1) a shopping basket 2) a place in a long long queue at the checkout, I'm left speechless with fury.

And I have to leave half my goods behind, unpaid for.