I want to first start by saying thank you to my wife Angeli for her awesome trip report on Senegal during the short Thanksgiving break. It was a wonderful trip and she captured our thoughts on it perfectly. Thank you Angeli!
This week I want to start a new series of posts where I discuss some Mauritania related topics. I started to realize I have been living here for 5 months and haven’t done a very good job of educating my audience about the country I am posted in. If you are like me, before I joined the Foreign Service I would have had a tough time pointing Mauritania out on a map, and even within the FS, many aren’t exactly sure where it is. I discussed it briefly when I was assigned the country, but from there I have done a disservice in educating about this fascinating country. Hopefully in the coming weeks and months we can rectify that just a little bit.
The first thing I want to talk about is also one of my favorite facts. The currency of Mauritania. Here is a quick breakdown:
Name: Mauritanian Ouguiya (ooo-gea-yaa)
Currency Code: MRU
Subunit: Khoums
Exchange Rate: 1 USD = 37 Ouguiya
Banknotes: 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000
Coins: 1/5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20
One of the things that makes the Mauritania Ouguiya so interesting is it is one of only two currencies on the entire planet that isn’t based on the power of 10. The other currency being the Malagasy Ariary found in Madagascar. Both currencies are based on the power of 5. For example, if you were to break down a U.S. dollar, you would get 100 cents. 1 British Pound Sterling is 100 pence. The most valuable currency in the world, the Kuwaiti Diner breaks down into 1000 fils. All based on the power of 10. However, the Mauritanian Ouguiya breaks down into “khoums” so that 5 khoums = 1 Ouguiya. This is why they have a 1/5th Ouguiya coin.
In practice, you will basically never see a khoum, and locals I have tried to talk to about this seem to be totally unaware of this fact, and some deny the existence of the 1/5 coin. It personally took me asking several people if they had seen a 1/5th coin, and ultimately talking with an expert on Mauritanian history in our embassy to actually getting to see one. Here is what it looks like:
The irony is it took me so long to find one of these, I probably value it more than any of the other coins even though it has a value of about half a penny. It’s not everyday you have a coin that’s value is represented with a fraction.
Some other interesting tidbits about the Mauritanian Ouguiya is that the currency though not officially pegged to any one currency, finds itself pegged to the USD between 37 and 38 Ouguiya to one, where it has remained for nearly 5 years. Part of this is due to the currency not being technically “convertible”. It is illegal to import or export Mauritanian Ouguiya, and when leaving the country on at least one instance our bags were searched to make sure we weren’t taking out any currency. You can only get Ouguiya from banks (including ATMs) and government offices. The U.S. Embassy is also allowed to exchange money for us.
In 2017, the Mauritanian government introduced the current notes seen below, and redenominated the currency at a a rate of 1:10. So your old 10000 Ouguiya note is now worth 1000 Ouguiya (basically drop a 0 in the value). What’s funny is when you go and buy something, they will still give you the price in the old currency, but expect the new currency. So if I buy a sandwich for 200 Ouguiya, they will tell me the price as “deux mille Ouguiya” (two thousand Ouguiya). It took me a while to get used to that.
I think that’s enough currency chat for one day. I hope it was information and as interesting as I find it. I’ll leave it with a few photos of the notes and coins so you can see how they look. Until next time! –Nick
