The piastre
If one Egyptian Pound is worth 17.2 cents, then one piastre, rounded up, is worth about .2 cents. For 75 piastre, you can ride the Metro almost anywhere. And, for about that, you can also buy a loaf of bread.
The typical Egyptian household must stretch its budget of three or four hundred dollars each month in many directions, so the piastre is nothing to sneeze at. Yet I do find it something of an irritant, because only the smallest denominations — 1, 5 and 10 piastres — have been reduced to coins. The rest — 25 and 50 piastre — pile among the other grubby paper bills that filter endlessly through this economy, and when I say grubby, I mean dirty, worn, and, occasionally, smelly.
The truth is, I have been mad at the 50 piastre note ever since one made me look like an idiot: Early in my tenure here, I thought I was paying a driver 50 Egyptian Pounds (about $10), and, though he accepted my payment politely, he later he delicately returned my 50 piastre note to the Big E, explaining the mistake. Now, when people try to give me any sort of piastre as change, I wave them off or stick the bills in the girls’ piggy banks. They have so many now, they think they are rich.