Ariary or Franc

I love Madagascar. I really love it. Life is tough here sometimes, but I’m generally happy and satisfied with my life and work here. HOWever, like all cultures and societies, Madagascar is not perfect. And just as there are many things I don’t like about life and society in America, there are many things I do not like about life and society in Madagascar. For example, something Americans take for granted is our sixth sense of situational awareness. You know what I’m talking about. You’re walking down the street and you have a sudden feeling that someone walking much faster than you is approaching from behind, slowly, or quickly, catching up to you. You haven’t even heard them. You just know they are there. So, you move to the side and let them pass. Why? Because they’re walking faster than you and it would be rude to halt their progress because you’re stubborn.

Such is not the case in Madagascar. You will literally be on the heels of the person in front of you. They may even turn and look right at you. Nonetheless, they will just keep on walking at snail-pace and not move a single inch to either side to let you pass unless you make some kind of verbal que that communicates your desire to move past them.

In similar fashion, if two Malagasy are walking towards each other on the sidewalk, even after seeing the person walking directly towards them, neither of them, and I mean neither of them, will think, “Now this guy is coming towards me. And if we do not redirect our current trajectories, we will collide. I should change the angle of my current trajectory to avoid such an unfortunate and inconvenient outcome.” No. Neither of them will think this. And, as is the law of physics, there will be a collision which will surprise both parties involved despite the early warning signs of such a disaster.

This is just one example. And it’s not that bad to cope with. It just means that I need to be the one to move to the side all the time and ask the person walking two steps an hour in front of me if I can scootch by. There is one thing, however, that absolutely grinds my gears. This one thing is the tomfoolery of the continuous use of francs instead of ariary.

The ariary is the currency of Madagascar. It’s not worth a lot. At the time of this writing, it is about $1 to 4,400Ar. That being said, the US-Dollar goes a long way, especially when you consider that a kilogram (2.2lbs.) of bananas costs 3,000Ar (not even 60 cents). The ariary has been in circulation for about a decade. Beforehand, Madagascar used the Malagasy franc. When the government made their own currency, there was a 5-1 exchange ratio. That is, 5 francs for every 1 ariary, and this exchange holds to this day.

This doesn’t seem so bad, except when you take into account that nearly all average Malagasy continue to use francs when giving prices. It’s hard to explain what I mean without going into a long and drawn out rant, which is essentially what this blog is. But put it this way, when I go to the store or market, I will ask the price of an item and the seller will tell me 5,000 francs. Mind you, francs don’t exist. There is no such thing as a Malagasy franc anymore. There are no notes or even remnants of the long-dead franc. All the money is ariary. The seller literally gave me a price in an imaginary currency. They might as well have told me that it costs 500 Monopoly dollars, 5 handfuls of acorns, or several crisp high-fives. Now, 5,000 imaginary francs translates to 1,000 real ariary. The thing is though is that there is no logical or rational reason for the continuous use of francs. And I have struggled for over a year and a half trying to understand the reason for this foolishness.

The example I gave isn’t bad. “Oh Nathaniel, calculating is easy.” Yeah, maybe, you say. But when they tell you 125,000 francs, now you have to divide by 5 and come to 25,000Ar. Those are very different numbers. Moreover, if they tell you the price in francs and you give them not enough, they will know exactly how much cash is missing. This means either that they do know the price in ariary but refuse to use it, OR they somehow associate the color of the notes with the value in francs instead of reading the FREAKING NUMBER of ariary on the note itself. Put it this way, I’ll ask someone the price of an object, they’ll give it to me in francs. And when I ask for the price in ariary, they don’t know how to respond. 70% of the time they have to do the calculation in their head instead of just understanding the value of the ariary.

Now my Malagasy friends have given plenty of excuses. Many of my friends still say francs (the imaginary money) instead of ariary (a real currency), and I use every opportunity to tease them about their tomfoolery. Their primary excuse is that the majority of people grew up with francs and not ariary. This is not only factually incorrect, it’s also a poor excuse. It’s factually incorrect in the sense that the ariary has been the ONLY currency in Madagascar and the franc has been out of circulation for over a decade. Which means even those Malagasy who are 20 years old will have spent half their lifetimes using ariary. And the half of their lifetimes that the franc was the currency of Madagascar, they were too young to understand the concept of money in general. This means that the use of franc instead of just accepting ariary is passed on from generation to generation. That doesn’t surprise me. Traditions die hard in Madagascar.

The excuse is also pretty silly from my personal experience. When you move to a new country, a common thing to do is to constantly convert the price of the local currency into the exchange rate equivalent in your own currency. The problem with this, without going into the economics behind it, is that purchasing power doesn’t work on a direct exchange rate. That is, the purchasing power of the dollar compared to the euro is different depending on many factors. Maybe something is relatively cheap in Europe compared to America. This is because the product is easier to produce in Europe. Thus, if one plans on staying in a new country for a while, it is simply easier to begin grasping the concept of how much the local currency can actually buy. You intuitively know the purchasing power of the USD. You can look at something and say, “no way, that’s too expensive,” even if you don’t know a lot about the product. Why? Because you know the purchasing power of a dollar which is generated through an aggregate consensus of dollar users (i.e. you and all the other people who buy things in dollars).

It’s not super difficult to pick up the purchasing power of a currency, especially if you’re acting in the marketplace frequently. It took me about 2 months to grasp the purchasing power of the ariary. When I go to a restaurant, I will look at the menu and its prices. I don’t calculate the price into USD. Why? Because I know the market price of food in ariary. I can look at prices and say for myself, “oh man, this place is pricey,” not because it’s expensive in USD, but because it’s expensive in ariary. I know the purchasing power of the ariary based on my experience in the marketplace. Now if I can do this in 2 months, explain to me why the entire country of Madagascar hasn’t figured it out in the last ten years. That’s right. You can’t. The only reasonable explanation is magic.

Now I confess, the use of francs doesn’t actually affect my life a lot. It’s a minor inconvenience at worst. But as an economists and realist, it absolutely grinds my gears because I think it is the most asinine death grip on a bygone thing I have ever seen. The fact is that it continues annoys me to no end. Moreover, the reluctance and stubbornness in switching to using the ariary as a price indicator, you know, the real currency and not the nonexistent currency, speaks to a more serious and underlying problem that Malagasy have struggled with since the day they first step foot on this island; universal refusal to change anything. There is a Malagasy proverb I recently learned, “It is better to die tomorrow than today.” That is, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t try something new or things might get worse. Stick to what you know. So, to my great annoyance and disappointment, the likelihood is that francs will persist to the end of days. And that’s just the way it is.

As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.