It's really hard to get hold of money in smaller denominations here in Cameroon.  We have 10.000 F bills, 5.000 F bills, 2.000 F bills, 1.000 F bills, 500 F bills plus 500 F coins, 100 F coins, 50 F coins, 25 F coins, 10 F coins, 5 F coins, and even 2 F coins.  But anything other than 10.000 F bills and 5.000 F bills is difficult to come by.  So one develops strategies for getting smaller bills and coins.  You can take a larger bill to a nearby little store and buy something, anything at all, thus forcing the owner of the little store to come up with the change.  It's not a real good strategy because often you must wait while the shop owner goes off to find someone who can break the big bill for them.  This can take time.  Another strategy is to buy phone credit.  This usually works better because the little "call boxes" which are on every corner, sell as little as 500 F worth of phone credit to people, and thus generally have change for a larger bill. If we are going into town, my favorite strategy is to deliberately and intentionally pay with only big bills at any of the major stores.  They take in lots of money all day long and thus have bills and coins in all denominations.  But the best strategy of all is to make friends with a taxi driver.   Now there is a person who always has piles of small bills and coins.  All day long he takes in fares of 300 F per drop.  At the end of the day his pockets are bulging with nothing but small money.  And he is more than happy to trade you small bills and coins for large bills.  So that is why Eric, our favorite taxi man, stopped by Shiloh at 6:30 p.m. today.  We gave him two 10s and a 5 and he gave us 25.000 F worth of small bills.  We're all set for several weeks now.  And when we run low again, Eric is just a phone call away.