quito-isms vol. 3

If you ever wondered what happened to all those golden Sacajawea dollars, well, they wound up here in Ecuador.For reasons that I do not fully understand and therefore will not try to explain, Ecuador uses American currency. They do have some coins of their own, but everything is in US Dollars. When the Sacajawea dollar coins didn't make it in the USA, they somehow ended up here in Ecuador, where they are (pun intended) worth their weight in gold. I was not fond of them in the States--they were never popular enough to use without getting strange looks, and back then, I was always trying to get rid of singles. Here we hoard any type of smaller currency--fives, ones--for useful, everyday tasks like buying the large jugs of water or paying for the quick taxi ride. I now find myself gravitating to the Sacajawea dollar instead of the good old GW bill, as it is much easier to tuck into a pocket without forgetting it and sending it through the washer. I also think that I now prefer these because they seem like any other coin and yet are worth so much more. In an economy where a dollar goes further, that's an important thing.