The money here makes my head hurt. :) Yup, it litterally hurts! Haiti has fake money. Well, not so much fake, as non-existant... Confused yet? Me too :)
All the prices here are written in either Haitian dollars, or in Gouds. For every 1 American dollar, there are 8 Haitian dollars, or 40 Gouds.
$1 USA = $8 Haitian
$1 USA = 40 Gouds
We go to DeliMart every Friday, which is basically a gas station AM/PM plus pharmacy type store. At Delimart, the prices are all written in Haitian dollars. So if we have American money, we have to divide the price we see on the item by 8... Here's the catch though- there is no such thing as printed Haitian dollars. They are just a thought- no paper what so ever. (Please pause here and think about that for a second- you're probably going, 'wait, what?') :)
Yes, that's right- they have non-existant money.
Gouds are the only printed money in Haiti, so no matter what you want to buy, if it's written in Haitian dollars you have do the math from American Dollars to Haitian Dollars, THEN convert from Haitian dollars to Gouds. So whenever we go to the store, we do at least 2-3 math problems in our heads per item we buy...
Ex:
A can of Sprite costs $7.20 Haitian Dollars, which means if you want to know how much it is in American money, you have to divide by 8. ($0.90 U.S.) Great, it's cheaper here than in the states- awesome! Now you have know how much it is in Gouds, which means you have to multiply the $7.20 Haitian Dollars by 5, OR multiply the $0.90 by 40... So just for a can of Sprite you have the following equation:
$7.20 H.D. / 8 = $0.90 U.S
$0.90 U.S. x 40 = 36 Gouds
OR
$7.20 x 5= 36 Gouds
36 Gouds / 40 = $0.90 U.S.