Stranded in Kampla

On Saturday afternoon, I went to pick up the twins that had spent the last month with me. They wanted to come and spend the night so I said ok. I went to pick them up with little money in my pocket thinking that after getting them we would stop at an ATM then head to get something to eat. The first ATM refused to give me money. I thought maybe it was out of money, which has happened to me before, so I tried a second one. It still refused. So, I tried a third ATM, this time from a different bank. Still no luck. I had enough money to transport us to another ATM to try but was starting to get a bit stressed. What would I do if I couldn't get any money? So, we went to the fourth ATM. STill nothing. By this time I had completely run out of money and had no way to get us home. Not to mention that we have had no gas for cooking for the past week. So, we were all hungry, no money for transportation and stuck in town. I had about a minute worth of air time on my phone so called a friend to come to meet me and bring me some money. He brought enough that I could add more air time and call the bank at home to see why I was not able to access any money. After twenty minutes of talking to the bank at home, I was told that there was no problem with my account and that it should be working just fine. Another trip to the ATM revealed that it still wasn't working. So, my friend graciously gave us money for dinner and money to get home and for the next few days. The girls went home that night and prayed that we would check the next day and find the ATM working. We checked the next morning at what was then the 6th ATM and found that this time it worked!
It was a good lesson for all of us. I learned not to travel into town without enough money to retrn me back home. They learned that the bank doesn't just spit money out of the machine.
As for the issue of gas for cooking, we are still waiting. It seems that all the gas in Uganda is imported from Kenya and there have been some delays recently. As for now, we'll continue eating peanut butter sandwiches.