Air Time (minutes)

This concept has still been making my mind explode: "air time", which is what the locals call "minutes" for the cell phones there. Air time is used as CURRENCY there, very much so. The same way we use a debit card instead of cash, people use cell phone minutes to get things as varied as lunch, a blow job, drugs, or any number of things like gasoline or whatever.
     When my laptop drive died, I lost about 7 pages of interviews and notes on the subject, collected over the course of my time in the Nkomazi region. Some of the key facts: for a very minimal amount of cell phone minutes, which with Vodafone/Vodacom having a monopoly on things in southern africa, you can get almost anything. 7 to 10 Rand worth of minutes would probably get you a blow job. 7 rand is ONE dollar. One. Dollar.
     Air time is easily gifted between phones there, as there is a specific way to give your friends, or anyone with a phone number, more minutes from your phone. Thats how it works. There is no such thing as a monthly plan, and when I told someone that I simply had unlimited minutes for a plan that included 4 phones, he just looked at me like I said I had 10 million dollars in every pocket in every pair of pants I have ever owned.
     Air time moves across borders effortlessly, is not specific to your phone, only your SIM card and even that can be retrieved by having a voucher, or basically a receipt of the transaction in cash that shows you purchased X amount of minutes. With no stable bank system and the liability of having cash on hand, this starts to all make sense. Much like carrying a credit card/ check card rather than cash.
    I will be pursuing this concept much more, but I just wanted to quickly post about it today. it is really amazing to me,no matter how much I "get it" it just feels SO random and slightly future-primitive-meets-mad-max or any other crazy vision of a bleak future type thing.... paying with "air time" for drugs... its like a bad sci - fi movie sentiment that is actually happening and very normal to people in South Africa.