Thursday, November 8, 2007

Dollars and Shekels.

When I arrived in Ramallah, the dollar was trading at 4.24 NIS (New Israel Shekels) to the dollar. Today, it's 3.87 NIS to the dollar.

This is not fun.

2 comments:

Sephyroth said...

I'm stopping by on my way to commenting on as many NaBloPoMo blogs as possible as part of the NaBloPoMo commenting challenge. :)

Just out of curiosity, do you use the Shekel in Ramallah, or does the PA have its own currency? However, I do think that the sagging dollar has to be a problem for expats around the world.

Sephyroth
http://www.sephyroth.net

Jessica McCoy said...

In the West Bank, people use both jD (Jordanian Dinars) and NIS (New Israeli Shekels). The shekel is the more common currency, but the JD is accepted. Before 1967, the West Bank was under Jordanian administration.

The PA doesn't have its own currency because it is not a sovereign nation. It's sort of a psuedo-state apparatus with administrative functions. It's more similar to being a state government (e.g. Wyoming) than a federal government.

The sagging dollar does indeed bite the big one.