Price Differences Between Zimbabwe and the States

I apologize if I havent posted many pictures- we havent had internet at all for the past few days, but we are working on it!

So, if Zimbabwe runs completely on the US dollar, how similar are the prices? It varies. Your standard fruit, veggie, meats, and other basics are pretty similar, if not slightly cheaper. Petrol is much more expensive than in the states, and diesel here is the cheaper fuel- all being sold in the liter.

But some goods are twice the price.

Mandy’s hair dryer died and we went looking for a replacement, and the cheapest hair dryer we could find was over $40. On most items there is a 100% import tax, so it doubles the price of anything brought into the country (like new cars, TV’s, Electronics).

While some things are really expensive, others are incredibly cheap. The house we rented in Nyanga- slept 16, came with two domestic servants who cooked and cleaned, and we had acres of undeveloped land at our disposal. It only cost $80 a night. A speeding ticket is maximum $20, filet mignon costs $9 a Kilo, and movie tickets cost $2 ($3 if there isn’t any power and the generator is running for the whole theater). Likewise Kean was offered $5 a day to work at a local store for the school holidays.

Services and education can also vary. Internet costs $80 a month, the phone bill (when it is hardly used) is $250, doctors visits are only $30 to a general practitioner, and one of Kaela’s friends pays her domestic servant $37 a week. Schooling at the best private school for boys in Zimbabwe only costs $4,200 a year and when Kaela was in school it was only $1500 a year. Given that three students from her school went to Harvard last year, and several students scored the top three highest scores in the International Cambridge examinations (A-Level GCSE) out of 130 nations (including Asia), that’s a pretty good deal.

It’s just interesting to see the differences in living.