It has really been one of those days.....I've been out of Soroti for a bit so I had a bunch of easy run-of-the-mill stuff to do, but I know better. Nothing here is easy like that. Started off early, I've been out of cooking fuel since before I left for Karamoja so I headed into town only to discover that there still is none to be purchased. More cold meals until the some gets here I guess. Then headed over to the bank to get some cash. Found the ATM wasn't refilled yet. (Often isn't if you go too early on Monday mornings. But it was 9 am and I though it was late enough.) Did a little grocery shopping and to the market with the limited money I had left. Then tried the ATM again. This time it told me that the issuing bank had declined my transaction. Yikes! This has happened before though and it usually has to do with a problem communicating with the banks in Uganda. Sometimes it is fine if you try again but sometimes the machine refuses to give the card back and I'm stuck for weeks without any means of getting funds. So decided to go home to check online. I had a lot of stuff yet to do but without cash couldn't do any of it. All the way back to the house, found my account was fine on the US side. Back to town. Back to the ATM and finally it worked like it is supposed to. Went into the bank to pay my rent, water bill and a traffic ticket. Traffic tickets here are issued, you take them to a bank to pay them then you bring them back to the police station in the city it was issued. Though the teller reminded me that I was missing a step. I had to go to the Revenue Authority first so they could make the form that that bank can fill out to say I've paid. Don't worry, it doesn't make any sense to me either. Was told that they system was down though so couldn't pay anything anyway. So I decided to go to the insurance office to renew, which was one of the reasons for the ticket. After waiting for insurance for nearly two hours while the woman, on her typewriter! plunked out one finger at a time my new forms, I finally had something checked off my to-do list. I tried not to think about the fact that I had spent all morning in town and had not successfully paid my rent or gotten cooking fuel or paid the water bill or dealt with the ticket .... I headed off to the URA office to try to get the form that I need in order to pay the traffic violation. Another long wait but finally managed. However, as I was gathering my forms and getting ready to leave I was told that I needed to go to Crane Bank. "But I have other business at Barclays, can't I go there?" Was told no, she didn't fill the form for me to go to Barclays and she didn't want to redo it. Are you kidding me?? So headed over to the new bank where I stood in line again. Finally got up to the window and passed my papers and money through to pay the ticket. She seemed to spend an inordinately long time calculating my change. When she finished up with that and passed my papers and balance back I asked if I could pay my water bill there too. She said sure and handed me a form and I was elbowed off to the side by the next person in line. (This is very normal as three or more people can be trying to conduct transactions at a teller window at any given time). As I got back to the window to pay the water bill I realized that the change she gave me was all wrong. I had given her 100,000 and owed 80,000. Even for me, who is terrible at math, I know that the 37,200 she gave me isn't right. So I kept 20,000 and passed the rest back explaining that she gave me too much. She snapped at me that there are bank charges that I also have to pay. I paused then asked what the bank charges are. She didn't reply and I said "Anyway, especially if there are more charges you've given me too much." I passed the papers back and showed that I owed 80,000, had given 100,000 etc.... She snapped that I had to give the 20,000 back. I asked how much the bank charges are. She immediately accused me of trying to cheat her. What?! I was trying to return some money because she had given too much! I was really wishing at this point that I had just kept my mouth shut.She started to work on the water bill that I'd also given her and it wasn't until she passed me those finished forms back that I realized that now she'd given me no change. Trying to be as non-confrontational as possible I asked how much the bank fees were and that she still owed me something. If looks could kill..... anyway she gave me back 17,200 so I'm assuming the fees were 2,800 but they could be anything for all I know. Deep breath and headed back over to the other bank, hoping their network was back up to pay my rent. Only a few more minutes standing in line and finally I though I was finished. I was almost all the way home, trying to figure out what I could make for lunch without any cooking fuel, when it dawned on me that I had not gotten the URA forms back to prove that I had paid the ticket after all that. I almost swore out loud as I turned the truck around. And to make matters worse when I went back in I learned the the teller I was interacting with was now on her lunch break. I explained to the person under the "customer service" sign what I needed and she said I just had to sit and wait until the teller came back. I decided the smartest thing was for me to go get some lunch of my own and come back in a bit. I was feeling slightly better after a chipate and coke. Not better enough though to keep my comment to myself when the teller had the nerve to say "I can't believe you left your form here." "Well, it was on your side of 2 inches of plexy glass because I had to give it back to you because you screwed up my balance so maybe you caused me to leave my form here!" Very christian, I know.
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