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I find this so significant and must share.  According to Wikipedia as read online March 08, 2011,

“The Zimbabwean dollar (sign: $, or Z$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies) was the official currency of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 12 April 2009.
Although the dollar was considered to be among the highest valued currency units when it was first introduced in 1980 to replace the Rhodesian dollar at a ratio of 1:1, political turmoil and hyperinflation rapidly eroded the value of the Zimbabwe dollar to eventually become one of the least valued currency units in the world, undergoing three redenominations, and banknote denominations being issued for as high as $100 trillion.[2]
Despite attempts to control inflation by legislation and three separate redenominations in 2006, 2008 and 2009, the use of the dollar as an official currency was effectively abandoned on 12 April 2009. This was a result of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe legalizing the use of foreign currencies for transactions in January 2009.[3]
Foreign currencies such as the South African Rand, Botswana Pula, Pound Sterling and the United States Dollar are now used instead for all transactions in Zimbabwe, and the current policy of the government of Zimbabwe has insisted that any attempts to reintroduce Zimbabwean currency should only be considered if the industrial output improves.[4]”
Have you ever traveled anyplace where the currency you used no longer exists?

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Whoah – don’t rush so quickly to judge!  We’ve all done things we kinda knew at the time were risky or looked back and thought yikes.  I was recently reminded of this choice I made by my dear friend whose name has changed since we first met.
To explain, there were extraordinary circumstances surrounding this.  I had just arrived in Bulawayo after a longer than need be train ride from Vic Falls (details at some future date in another post – must say it will be awesome – think, me and 3 lady bunkmates trading in Namibia, a white Rhodesian who has no nationality, a fashion designer and a guy with an electric guitar).
I was the whitie who got off the train, and clearly the freak (remember in the movie Madagascar when the king lemur Julien XIII says “Can you not see that you have insulted the freak?” – kind of like that but totally different and wonderful all the same).  Typically in other countries and cities I could walk up to the information desk and ask a few friendly questions like what’s there to do, where can I catch the bus, how do you get around, is there a locker I can use…those kinds of things.  Well, in a country with no petrol, no jobs, and essentially chaos, there is no information desk.  So I talked with the only staff that station had, who clearly thought I was nuts (astute man) and was told to wait out front for my taxi.  I stood out there looking at the parking lot and a couple ladies nearby said “watch out, you’re being watched” which I took to be a friendly how do ya do.  Clearly they were also shy as they whispered under their breath and told me not to look at them.
Not long after that my chariot arrived, a Toyota pickup truck, and the driver, Steve, was clearly the guy with connections who could get a truck, obtain petrol and conduct business all along the way.  We visited a few places in town – people were delighted to have a visitor.  And everything was way cool/groovy because it was like going back in time in some cases.  Obviously there haven’t been investments in new developments, but one thing I can say about Zimbabweans is they take pride in what they have and what they do (NOT something you can say about Mongolians – which I will go on about ad nauseum in another post).
We visited a music school which was pretty cool as they performed an impromptu concert on local instruments just because I was there (a visitor).  After that my driver had to do some business so he dropped me off in town for me to go about on my own and then meet back at the library.  I did my darndest to stay out of trouble and went to the Natural History Museum which was incredibly interesting and well preserved.  Clearly set up by the Brits and left to stay – it was fascinating to see exhibits frozen in time, untouched by recent scientific discoveries and updates.
I walked the streets a little bit and saw all the people walking along the big roads, hailing the few cars that drove by and never stopped.  Cars lined up miles long at gas stations that would only uncertainly ever pump gas.  These were desperate people making the best of times.
Eventually I got hungry and went into a supermarket to get some bread or something to eat.  Well, duh.  The aisles were empty except for a few unappealing canned goods.  Again, no petrol, no jobs, no food.  People were jobless and starving.  Those who weren’t burnt out of their homes at least weren’t homeless, too.  Mugabe was doing massive raids of “shanty towns” burning them down in flash blazes by night.  I smelled the fires.
The one challenge I had was I needed money.  I asked Steve to help me exchange the tremendous sum of $30 USD to Z$ so I could get around Harare when I arrived there next.  Eventually we met back up at the library and I plunked my bag in the back of the truck so we could move on to the next festivities and get my money exchanged.  It was maybe 4pm-ish and my train wouldn’t leave for Harare until late at night.  We drove to every guy on a street corner and white folk around town with no money, after no money, after no money (no money, no money, no – sing it now).  At some point a guy with a large gun jumped in the back.  That made me nervous.  I was sitting in the front seat while Steve went in some store to ask about exchanging the money and I suddenly thought, “crap, who’s the guy with the gun in the back.”  It didn’t seem to make sense to get out (not that I was sticking around for the $30 fortune) but hey, clearly my presence was being watched and the guy had a large gun.  Eventually Steve came back with a successful exchange.  I should mention that inflation there was beyond extreme (and there are ATM’s, but the street rate was 10 times + what the banks were offering).  Mugabe devalued the Z$ by the thousands in days and again in weeks.  They went from 40Z$ to 400000 Z$ in a month of devaluations.
No petrol, no jobs, no money, no food, no home.  No good.
Cash in hand, there were still maybe 4 hours to kill before the train departure to Harare.  So what to do, what to do.  I have no idea how this came up.  Steve and I had chatted all through the day.  He had kids, pretty sure they didn’t live with him though.  He explained how expensive it was putting them in school – paying for tuition, uniforms, books, etc.  I had forgotten how most other countries in the world do charge for those things – no matter how little money the residents (and that’s a whole other issue how people are counted/recognized as residents or citizens) had access to.
I’m not sure if it started with a dinner idea, or a place to hang out, really, I can’t remember.  Anyhow, we lost the guy with the gun in the back and drove back to his place (the guy with the gun was merely an assistant).  My thought was, we got along great, chatted about all kinds of things, dinner sounded good (hey, he had food), and what a treat it would be to visit a new neighborhood.  We drove for a bit of a while outside of town, yeah, maybe at that part I started to think hmmm.  Sure it was getting dark.  Well, we seemed to be driving through a normal looking neighborhood.  We got there and I don’t remember what I thought at first.  I realized the house was surrounded by a high metal fence with a gate.  The deal was, he would hold back the 2 pit bulls while I got through the locked fence and then into the locked gate in front of the front door space, which I quickly did.  Once the gate locked behind me as I was outside the front door and there were then 2 gates and 2 pit-bulls preventing my getting back out, I realized I was in deep.  This was the big oh sh$t what have I done now.  I pushed the envelop too far this time.
He fended off the dogs, got within the gate where I stood and let me in his place.  I felt like I was playing it cool, no doubt he could see beads of sweat.  I can’t exactly remember all the details.  Something like walk in, go left living room, go straight hallway to bathroom, kitchen left, bedroom right.  I had to use the bathroom.  Needed to collect my thoughts.  I heard him in the kitchen and thought ok.  So I walked out and we chatted in the kitchen.  He was preparing a stew he made from a fish he caught.
Steve was colored.  For those who haven’t been to Africa, Africans generally refer to themselves as colored if they are mixed black and white.  Steve told me about how he grew up and the experiences he had growing up colored.  Being colored he couldn’t swim in white kid pools.  He swam in run off, what sounded like sewage.  He didn’t have access to white folk schools.  He had scars on his face from where people had thrown stones at him and he had gotten into fights.  Being colored was something different there, although it sounded like the blacks were actually treated worse.  Soon the stew (delicious) was ready and we took our bowls out to eat in the living room where we turned on the tv and watched Oprah.
Sometime after that he took me back to the train station and offered to call his brother in Harare so I would have a place to stay when I arrived.
In a country where there is no petrol, no jobs, no money, no food, no homes for many; there is still an unrelenting sense of right, humanity and beauty.