Country Article / Postcards
Yes, We Have Bananas
Date: 07/23/2003Dear International Living Reader,
" Cinco reales," he told me when I asked how much for a banana.
I was confused. The boy, no more than 8 or 9 years old, was selling fruit on the street in Tola, and I was in the market for bananas. I like to buy produce from the street sellers whenever possible. Given the quantities I'm usually shopping for (I buy in bulk for the Clubhouse restaurant at Rancho Santana, the private community on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, where I'm living), it makes their day, and it's usually an interesting experience. But " cinco reales"? The monetary unit in Nicaragua is the cordoba.
The girls from the Clubhouse came to the rescue to translate. Once upon a time, they explained, before the revolution, the cordoba was divided into reales, not centavos.
One real was one-tenth of a cordoba--in current terms, 10 centavos. At the time, one real had some value, and there was a five reales coin. After the currency devalued with the revolution, one real became worthless. The government divided the cordoba into 100 centavos, like our dollar. But why was this child, certainly not old enough to have lived when reales were in circulation, quoting prices for his goods this way?
Tradition dies hard here.
For example, Nicaraguans don't like street signs. When the Communist government tried to install them in Managua, the people took them down.
Since my experience with the fruit seller in Tola, I've noticed the reale being used more often. For your reference, " cinco reales," or 50 centavos, at current exchange rates, is three cents. Not a bad price for a banana.
Gail Geerling
For International Living
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