Snippets of an OMS life

Taken from a Reddit post regarding my job:

You run to a weekly meeting early to set up the video. You have a standing reservation with ISC to set up this meeting, but the only person who will do it has been on leave and, even though everyone in your section knows how to place the call, no one will do it. You don’t normally do this (it’ll be the second time in a year and a half you’ve done) because you have to make sure your boss gets to the meeting on time. However, last week made it clear that no one else will do it, so it falls to you. Your boss is late to the meeting.

Back at your desk, you missed an IM from HR. They want a list of your section’s entry-level officers. It would seem they know this, but you track it down anyway. You later discover this request was originally directed to HR from the ambassador's office.

You’re finally looped in on a staffing thing. You did this for the entire first year you were here, but when the new bosses arrived, they ignored all your experience and instead asked the new staff assistant for his opinion. Today, your section is asked to agree or disagree with DC’s decisions on new positions. You look at the spreadsheet and realize your section has been approved for the one position you really needed plus one more. You were been turned down for five, too, but between March, when your section was asked for its “dream staffing situation” and August, when your section was asked to trim the list, those came off the list anyway. The staff assistant has written some formal dissent-type thing, indicating your section does not agree with the decision. You are confused because it does. In the end, the boss realizes you are right and sends up the spreadsheet. You sent the draft with your comments but when you review at what he’s sent, you realize not only that the comments not included, he didn’t say “concur” in the line marked as such. You point this out, dig up the email chain with the proposed comments and resend. What you could have done in 38 seconds has now taken hours.

You ask HR for an employee’s position number. It is a personal service contractor position, not a direct hire, so you can’t just look it up in GEMS, like you can do for others. The HR employee doesn't know. An hour later, a different HR employee asks you for the same employee’s position number.

Our section’s timekeeper sends back an officer’s incorrect leave form. The officer asks the remote timekeeper how to do it, giving information that is not relevant. You offer to help the officer fix it, walking him through the process.

Another employee sends you his earnings and leave statement to prove he didn’t get OT for a recent pay period. You can’t help but notice his salary is more than double yours. You are not the timekeeper but have access. You send screen shots assuring him (for the second pay period in a row) it was entered correctly and send him the link to the payroll portal, which you found on the intranet.

You attend a local staffer lunch, which starts a bit late. You notice a VIP guest, the DCM, waiting awkwardly for the food to arrive, and thankfully your boss steps in and starts chatting him up. A flurry of activity indicates the food is arriving downstairs. You go with the LE staff to help bring it in and set up. You’re the only American who pitches in. The DCM asks for the status of your State Magazine submission. It has been with him for a week; he wanted the ambassador to read it before clearing it.

Just before the lunch ends, you’re cornered about the Federal Women’s Program, of which you are a coordinator. The local staff are excited about being included in the proposed self-defense class, but remind you that this must be done during office hours. Oh, and can they please go to the gun range and shoot?

When you remind your boss that you need his GEMS proxy to create evaluation forms, he says his is broken and can you get it fixed? You mention this may due to a certain reason and he says no, get it fixed. You pull strings and get the one person in DC who can fix this. He asks the problem; you try to describe it. He confirms exactly what you thought: it’s due to that certain reason. You explain this again to your boss, adding that’s exactly what DC says. You still don’t have his GEMS proxy.

He asks you to “put in a ticket” to fix his printer, which “is broken.” You suggest maybe you have a look at it. He says there’s “a weird jam.” You open the printer and clear the jam. This is the easiest job of the day.

HR asks you to verify position numbers again. You do so, using information you got months ago – from HR.

The AMB OMS messages you, clearly upset. The AMB had her arrange a “diplo dogs” event at the embassy, and six ambassadors, three DCMs and a political leader from outside embassies are attending with their canines, along with a handful of dog owners in your mission. The AMB’s dog is in the office, which, since, the OMS is allergic to dogs, is bad enough, but it also took a dump on the expensive rug. The protocol staffer called in sick and the house manager is out of town attending his sister’s funeral, so the OMS had to bring in and hold court for all the guests, who of course started arriving just after the dog’s dump. The AMB yelled at her to just call the FM, but he was out today, so she called the GSO to escort the cleaners. Since the GSO already thinks the AMB OMS is snooty because she pushed back on yet another a poorly written and badly formatted AM last week, this wasn’t well-received. She sighs and wonders if the DCM OMS would have gotten the same response, but, alas, he’s on parental leave and she’s covering both principals.

Near the end day, you realize that the executive office is still waiting on one “welcome home” note for the ambassador. You were only cc:ed, as was your boss, but you recognize that no one has responded to this urgent tasker. You ask you boss if your section is responsible for the note. He says he thought XYZ section would be responsible. It’s at a different location, so you email the XYZ contact, who was listed first on the executive office's email “to.” You also message the executive office staff assistant to let her know your section will not be sending the note, that your boss said it’s XYZ’s and you are contacting XYZ. She thanks you for tracking it down, saying she just needs it in the next few minutes, because the ambassador requires it before stepping on a plane in the next hour. Luckily, XYZ responds, but says, oh, I thought ABC section was doing that. You call a friend in ABC, who, as it’s now after 5, luckily answers the phone. He knows nothing of the subject but directs you to someone else. You have never met the someone else, but call him and let him know that the ambassador needs the bullet and that XYZ implied it was ABC’s to do. ABC agrees to provide the point, and, after thanking him, you notify the executive office that the tasker will be completed.

You contact the DC office and again implore moving ahead what is essentially a rubber-stamp paperwork shuffle, but DC doesn’t respond.

Before you leave, you stop by HR to, for the fourth consecutive week, offer to help audit/rectify your section’s position numbers; somehow, this is a different tasker than the previous one. This is the added assurance that DC thinks it needs to move forward the rubber-stamp issue. Although DC really doesn’t need it, the person you’re dealing with is insisting on it, and the HRO won’t give it to you without auditing the numbers. You did the thorough audit with the previous HRO two months before the current HRO arrived, but that no longer counts. You are again rebuffed and told HR will get to it when it gets to it.

You then pop into a small RPCV gathering, where an argumentative and drunk section head starts railing about OMSes. She mentions “her” OMS, and you politely point out that the person is a contractor, not an OMS and that she is assigned to the section, not a personal assistant. In a drunken rage, the section head explodes to you that she will call her whatever she wants, and as long as the contractor does what she wants, she doesn’t care what she is. You know this poor contractor is forced to do such things as buy wine and check mail for the section head and work late setting up her personal parties, things no OMS should do. The contractor is a great person and very good at her administrative role; you suggested she apply as an OMS, but she said she did and didn’t pass the QEP.

You finally give up and head home, where your day winds down by coordinating a reunion for your mom’s work colleagues, some 7000 miles away from your assignment. Somehow, this fell to you, but you don’t mind because, well, so does everything else.

Merry Christmas (cow)

For some reason, the cows come out at Christmas. No one understands, but we all go with it.

No, not real cows. It’s still the 100 Acre Sandbox. But someone, a long time ago and perhaps in a galaxy far, far away, someone (or someones) thought it would be funny to build plywood cows and place them strategically across out the Sandbox. This happened last time I was here, too, so, although I have no idea how long they’ve been here, it’s been at least 3-4 years.

I’m not positive how many they are because they get separated quickly. There are at least three: a live-size grayish one, and a black and white one about the same size and one smaller one that looks like it might be a calf. One’s grazing. There may be more, but I can definitely think of three.

They appear, as if they’ve migrated, around Thanksgiving and last through the holidays. (Until this year anyway – more on that soon.) Since we get bored here and create our own entertainment, there are people (or possibly gremlins) who relocate the cows when no one’s watching.

I’ll write it off as testosterone, a thing that I don’t understand, because I just don’t get it, but people seem to enjoy moving the cows from one pasture from another. Of course, we don’t have pastures, so people make do. They wind up all over the place: on the one field we have, the tennis course, on a bunker somewhere and then in a bunker somewhere else.

It becomes a thing, and people try to get cute. Although I missed it this year, someone put one on a roof; the fire department had to pull it down because they were worried it might topple over and hurt someone. I heard one appeared way up on a tower that very few people have access to and some have been sneaked into people’s beds while they were away. Last year, one somehow got into the ambassador’s office.

They make me hungry. Dating back to the last time I was posted to the Sandbox, every time I saw the spotted cows, it made me hanker for Chick-Fil-A. Man, I miss Chick. We have lots of chicken, but it’s not the same. And oh, my kingdom for some waffle fries or mac and cheese.

Finally, I decided to make a Chick sign for a cow, which was a lot harder than it sounds. I sacrificed a shipping box and rigged up a rope made from plastic bags. I had to get the proper cow spelling and etch it out, but the hardest part was finding the darn cow.

One particular group of people commandeered two cows. Another cow, a smaller one, somehow was rendered headless. It was found on the volleyball court. I noticed it, but didn’t immediately realize it didn’t have a head; it was lying on its side and I just figured people had started cow tipping. Yes, we have some Wisconsin residents in our midst.

The one group of people swore they hadn’t beheaded the one cow, but they were guilty of some shenanigans with the other two, hiding them (or so I heard) in their areas and putting them in each other’s beds. (Testosterone, I’m telling you.) No one else had access to them for awhile, and the silly sign sat on my desk for a couple of days before someone dropped a hint where I might could find one.

Finally, I was able to baptize one of the cows as a Chick-Fil-A cow. I’d hoped for the black-and-white one, but even though I was able to find both that and the gray, the black-and-white one was in a grazing position and its head was waaaaaay too big for the rope I’d made.

Somehow, I was – I think – able to get the sign on without being seen, and I surreptitiously slipped away. But then, I didn’t see the cow for a couple more days.

It appeared in a parade! We do a little Christmas parade with our little golf carts, which was last weekend. As an aside, holy cow, what an insane weekend that was. We did our party for one of the larger teams that works in 12-hour shifts. It’s one party, two shifts – an AM and a PM. I worked both, doing organization, serving food, setting up, taking down. It was seven solid hours in my feet – three starting at 7 a.m. and four starting at 4 p.m. and I managed to get in 16k steps without even going to the gym.

The parade was after that, and even though it meant standing for another hour, I wanted to see it and boy, was I totally taken aback to see my sign around the neck of a cow one of the offices had tied to the top of a golf cart! They were drafting off my wind – taking credit for my sign. (Which I, of course, ripped off from Chick.) One of the guys with the “float” was a friend so I ribbed him a little about it. It was just kinda funny.

Now we’ve had a couple of days with rain and the sign is falling apart, but I managed to sneak a photo of it. I didn’t think about how weird it would look straight on. The cows are pieces of slotted plywood that slide together and the horns are one piece and the face another. If I can get another photo, I’ll add, but if not, just trust that the cow does have a head.

Thankful for free stuff and accommodating mules

The 50-Acre Sandbox scores

Happy Thanksgiving from the 100-Acre Sandbox! We have a continual revolving door of people here, and there’s a limited amount of stuff we can take with us. As a result, when people leave, they tend to unload stuff. Many of the people come who come in with a whole bunch of food and stuff never wind up eating it because the cafeteria has so much. Since we’re not allowed to pack out food, a lot of it winds up on the free table. There’s one of those on each floor of each apartment building.

The free table’s not limited to food, but anything a person might want to unload. Beyond food, the most common items are books and cleaning supplies. I scored three bottles of Clorox bathroom cleaner and a couple James Patterson books recently. I’ve also scored a cooler, a couple big storage bins and an amazing drying rack. The latter’s been an awesome find and I really hope I can take it with me when I leave, but I suspect the reason it was left on the free table was that it doesn’t fit in the shipping containers.

One of my teammates left a couple weeks ago and I grabbed a bag of stuffing and French’s Onion Crisps  to put on top of green bean casserole. I knew Thanksgiving was coming up and for whatever warped reason, I thought I might use them. That was stupid because our cafeteria makes an awesome Thanksgiving meal. Fortunately, I recognized a couple days ago that I wasn’t going to use the stuff. I figured I’d give it away.

On Tuesday, I was at work and sent a note to a friend in our 50-Acre Sandbox a little farther north. They don’t have a cafeteria there and put on a potluck instead. During my first tour, I spent Christmas up there and made mashed potatoes, so I figured they’d be doing something fun. In messaging my friend, I mentioned that I’d thought about cooking and even had the crispy onions that go on top of the green bean casserole. She responded that she’s been shopping and had been unable to find them and their potluck was going to be crispy onion-less.

Well, we can’t have that! We have a regular flight between the sandboxes, and I know where to get the list of people taking that flight. I didn’t know any of them, but we’re all colleagues, so I picked one (there weren’t many!) and sent a note asking if I could send a little package through him. All I can say is we have awesome people here because he agreed. My friend had showed me a list of things they couldn’t find up there, and cranberry sauce was on it. Before I dropped off the package to the nice mule, I ran by the store and grabbed two cans of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce.

The community potluck in the 50-Acre Sandbox is no doubt thankful for their windfall, just as I am every time I find fun stuff on the free table.

I’m also thankful that I had an amazing Thanksgiving meal and didn’t have to cook or clean up. The cafeteria here, which seems to have its own supply from French’s and Ocean Spray, puts on quite an amazing spread. My Turkey Day lunch was salmon, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and, of course, turkey. So much that I didn’t even bother with the desserts, which, as I understand it, involved chocolate-covered strawberries. I’m debating going back for round two for dinner, but unless I get ravenously hungry in the next two hours, it’s not going to happen.

The only downside of having an amazing cafeteria to cook and serve food to you and then clean up is that there are no leftovers. Friday is the day for turkey sandwiches, but that doesn’t happen here. It’s a small price to pay, though, for all the good stuff we have.

Never ever have I been to Camp Lejeune

It’s almost three weeks since I returned to The 100-Acre Sandbox, and my countdown has officially begun. I am doing two tours here and arrived on September 15 last year, but because I took home leave in the middle (which I didn’t have to), I returned in late October. We have to say a full calendar year, but, because of transportation considerations, I did not leave right on that anniversary date. The next ride home was September 26 and that “bonus time” doesn’t count towards the second year, which instead begins the day I return. Then, those transportation considerations mean that although I touched down in the sandbox on October 19, 2022, I won’t leave until October 30, 2023. So now that we’ve made it into November, I’m officially down to less than a year. Considering I really never thought I’d be here for two years in the first place, it seems weird.

Most people who stay here for two years don’t like the second year as much as the first, for any one (or combination) of a variety of reasons. My plan is to buck the system and have a great year, but in some ways at the mercy of the sandbox gods on that. So far, though, all has gone according to plan. While I didn’t really think I’d finish two whole tours here – that was based on my experience from last time, not a desire to bounce out early – my first year was fantastic and the obstacles towards my next step are falling away. I got promoted, which made landing my hoped-for next post attainable and then I landed it. Can’t ask for more.

But you know what? Stuff I haven’t asked for is also falling my way. My onward is set now – I am going to Antananarivo, Madagascar to work in the HR section. This was the long-term plan set while I was in Minsk – I went to grad school (again) to get the degree so I’d be qualified to do it. That paid off, and, as an aside, I might not be paying it off: I took out a student loan to do it, knowing I would qualify for my employer’s tuition reimbursement program. By taking a rough post and promising to stay in my job for another three years, Uncle Sam promised to contribute $10k towards my tuition. I’d just gotten the note that was official when Biden also threw out his promise to cancel up to $20k in loans. My entire loan was only $13k, so if his plan gets through Congress, my remaining $3k should be covered. Too bad I can’t get the time back, too, but I’ll take the money.

While I will still need to go to the HR training my employer runs, it looks like it will time nicely for when I leave here, as in starting the very next week. Since I will also need to take French, starting the “tradecraft” classes before my home leave can set it up to where I can take a long break before starting French in February 2024 or so.  It is a long time in the future, and I am signing on for three years in Madagascar. Right now – on paper anyway – I know where I am supposed to be for the next five years. In this gig, that’s unreal.

Where I plan on being for the next year, at least when not at work, is on the pickleball court. We finally have both indoor and outdoor courts and a lot of people have come out to play, from all over the place. We have a lot of people from several different hiring mechanisms, like multiple federal agencies, security contracts, administrative contracts, facility-type contracts – and people from all come out to play. And different levels, too. We have cafeteria workers lining up against the ambassador. We’re all over the place.

One guy has spearheaded it. (Though it helps a lot that both the ambassador and the No. 2 are totally into it – and very good.) The guy organized our first tournament last weekend and we had 40 people participate as players and then we also had volunteer line judges. Others just came out to watch, too. It was really a fun night. I’m pretty bad as a player and my team didn’t win any of the four games we played, but it was wholly fun.

I had tried to sharpen my skills while on home leave, playing at the senior center with Zippy. That’s $2 well spent, that is for sure. I came close to buying my own paddle while there but held back, mostly because last time I was in the sandbox, I did a lot of boxing and subsequently bought boxing gloves, which have not been touched since I left here last time. I probably have a better chance of using a pickleball paddle again so I should look into that.

Home leave was mostly medical visits, but I also was able to attend my cousin’s wedding at the Biltmore. It was in a giant atrium and the colors were changing so it was beautiful. Bonus – I got to try on a Stanley Cup ring! My cousin’s new father-in-law had one from the Bruins’ 2011 championship. I asked how he’d gotten it and he said, “I made them a lot of money.”

So that (meaning the wedding, not just the Stanley Cup ring) capped a highlight of home leave. Another was visiting Latitude Margaritaville in Watersound, where I’ve been considering buying/building for retirement.

The other home leave theme seemed to be Camp Lejeune. Seriously, what is up with this lawsuit, or whatever it is? I have no idea what TV station Zippy watches – the one with Gunsmoke, I guess – but I swear every half hour, there was a voice coming over asking me if I’d been in Camp Lejeune between 1953 and 1987. What the heck is this? I mean, ALL the time. And I had never heard of it.

Now that I am back, I am STILL getting hit with this stuff. My Microsoft email populates with an ad asking me the same thing – was I at Camp Lejeune? They’re not quite as annoying as election ads, but they are certainly as constant.

No, I was not at Camp Lejeune before 1987. I was at the Biltmore in Asheville in 2022, though. Now please stop annoying me!

Helo again. It’s been awhile

Back from a break, though it wasn’t a break at all. Just been super busy at the office, what with the regular summer transition. Probably 75 percent of the staff in my little section turned over. It’s a weird thing about this job: there’s constant turnover. The larger the section, the more people come and go.

It can be sad, but at some point, you get used to it. It’s a gig where everything is temporary. In Baghdad, it’s more intense because at normal posts, people stay 2-3 years, but in Baghdad it’s 1-2. With my timing – most of the turnover is early in the summer and I arrived in late September – I’m on target to work for three bosses in two years, which, due to my weird timing, should turn out to be 26 months.

 

With the new bosses, though, comes new introductions to everything. Not just people, but procedures. And since, in Baghdad, we don’t get out much but the security people need to know the area, getting familiar with the lay of the land includes a helicopter tour of what’s known as the International Zone.

Since we’re the federal government, we go big. It’s never just one person, so we took two groups of people in a helicopter tour, and I got lucky and got a ride.

I totally love helicopters. I did the first one in Alaska, and I remember thinking I would film the takeoff and when I went to take a shot through the see-through floor, I realized we’d already taken off. It was an amazing sensation, just lifting into the air.

For this tour, I was all-in! We did about 20 minutes, and I had “coms” – headphones the pilots use to talk to each other. I – and three other people – could listen, but not talk.  It was hard to hear, but I eventually figured out when to expect “maneuvers” – we did some fun moves to get around radio towers and things.

 

One of the big things to see in Baghdad is the “Crossed Swords” monument, and there was some kind of armed forces photo op going on. There was a camera drone around somewhere and I could hear the pilots talking about it. (Obviously, we didn’t want to ruin anyone’s pictures.) Those guys were good – I never saw the thing.

Baghdad is huge. We only went over the International Zone, but there were white buildings as far as I could see. The pilot pointed out things like Route Irish and some of the sites of the presidential palaces (yes, plural). To me, it was just amazing to look down and see the Tigris, the same one that flowed in Adam and Eve’s time. I swear, I love this part of the country.

And helicopters. It was so much fun. We had two legs going and when the first group got off they were all smiles and thumbs down, saying, oh, it was awful – you don’t want to do it. I’ll take your spot. Definitely my Baghdad highlight.

I told the new boss all I need now is a photo op for me in front of Crossed Swords and I can leave! Kidding, of course, but since I don’t have a prayer of making it to the zoo and have already seen Saddam’s swinging site, Crossed Swords is my last realistic (somewhat, anyway) bucket list item.

It was a great way to wrap up my first year in Baghdad. Technically, my anniversary was September 15, but because I left for home leave on the charter flight yesterday, I had two weeks of “bonus Baghdad time.” My second year doesn’t start until I return, which is due to be October 18.

Now I’m in DC, getting ready to head to Florida just when everyone else is trying to get out. I’m due in tomorrow at 1 and have a lab appointment at 2:30 and then possibly a dentist appointment; that was scheduled for Thursday at 8 a.m. but apparently they called me this morning to reschedule. I hope I can; I need a crown.

 

My big home leave trip this time is not taking Zippy to a softball game, though; instead I’m driving her to see her brother at his son/her nephew/my cousin’s wedding. It’s in Asheville, which is cool because I’ve never been.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to drive. No helos.

 

Back from a galaxy far, far away

 Been back two weeks from my R&R and it’s very much like I never left. Par for the course, I guess, but it does get tiring. Now I am planning for my home leave, which is a few short weeks in America. As usual, there are doctor appointments that need to happen. Trying to get a referral from here without going to see a primary doctor there is about as hard as taking out the Death Star, but hopefully things are lining up. Unfortunately, I got the added wallop of a toothache and it looks like I’ll have to get another crown, which will probably make my home leave more expensive than the whole trip to Star Wars land. 

Tunisia was really cool, thought. Hot, but cool. August isn’t the time to go to a desert, but I knew that in advance; I couldn’t go any other time. It was about 10-15 degrees cooler than it is in the sandbox, but it’s also – at least on the beach part – more humid.

My private group tour wasn’t all about Star Wars; basically, I saw the whole country, culture and traditional and all. Kairouan, for example, has the oldest mosque in north Africa. (And, before the tour, I discovered that Tunis has an American cemetery, the only one in Africa. Soldiers who died during the world wars are buried there. I had no idea America had cemeteries overseas).

But the Star Wars scenes were highlights, even though there’s big movie magic involved. Luke Skywalker’s house, for example, was incredibly tiny. It steps down to the ground, yes, but inside, it’s not more than 8 feet across. There is no way that Luke, Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen lived in that tiny place. Mos Epsa, one of the backdrops from the prequels, had raw wooden beams holding up the little round housing structures and the droids in the courtyard were made from wood.

 Here's Smithsonian’s take on the Mos Epsa site, which is surrounded by gorgeous dunes. We took a 4x4 out there and did some dune bashing, which was a lot of fun. The guide said there used to be another site about 5 kilometers away but has, in the 40 years since filming, has been taken over by nature.

 “It's only a short drive from the oasis of Tozeur, but the abandoned set of Mos Espa spaceport on the Chott el-Gharsa salt flat feels something like the end of the earth. Familiar landmarks of the fictional town have withstood weather and time, including the spaceport gate, podracing area, Watto’s shop and the café of famed podracer Sebulba, whom Anakin defeats to win his freedom. Moisture vaporators and other props also remain, posing a stark contrast to the desert landscape and mustard-colored set. Only the first stories of buildings were constructed for the prequels, leaving computer-generated imagery to design the rest. The crew of the prequel triology spent close to five months at the location, forging the now well-beaten road to the Nefta-Tozeur highway.” 

Some of the sites were, inexplicably, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Once in a while, it made sense, like the area used for the pod racing in the first prequel. That site has a structure called “Camel’s Neck,” and it’s basically a dry lake of nothingness. I thought it was beautiful. We drove through another huge dry lake, too. Gosh, it was just forever of flat earth.

 We visited the Sand People’s digs, which was also used in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Sidhi Bouhlel was the place where the Sand People tried to attack Luke when Ben steps in. In Raiders, it’s the place where Indy aims the gun at the ark and the Nazis dare him to shoot it and then Indy winds up being drug under the truck.

 The Raiders scenes from Cairo also doubled as Star Wars sites. Who knew Anakin worked on his pod racer in the same place where Miriam was kidnapped? The ksars were beautiful and fascinating. Although, sadly, they’re run down and mostly vacant now, they have been in use for hundreds of years.  

 I should go back and watch the prequels again so I can try to visualize where I was, but that would mean I have to watch the prequels again. I’ve seen them once – they were horrible. But I went back and watched “The Rise of Skywalker” again, marveling at the movie making. At the final scene, Ray, shown outside Luke’s childhood home, buries the light saber in the sand. In reality, the site, smack in the middle of the dry lake, is surrounded by dirt, not sand. She wouldn’t have been able to do that.

 Tatooine doesn’t exist, but Tataouine does. Lucas and the crew set up there to film in nearby sites and liked the name so much he adopted it. We also went through a Chibika, and, although I didn’t see anything to lead me to believe he took that name, it certainly sounds like he did. The guide said “chibika” means “the place where the oasis meets the sand.”  

Another base the crews used way back then, Sidi Hotel Idriss, is still used and has a lot of memorabilia, but no souvenirs. I’m American – I was expecting commercialism everywhere, and it just didn’t exist. But that hotel – which was there the cast stayed during parts of filming – had an amazing room with 40-year-old photos and such. (None for sale.)

 The hotel part has little rooms in the courtyard and on the doors they have character names where the actors stayed. They showed me the Luke Skywalker room, where Mark Hamill crashed. It’s way out in the middle of nowhere and the rooms don’t even have bathrooms; those are down the hall.

Really, Tunisia wasn’t a bucket list location or anything; I just had a vacation to take and I didn’t want to go far. Our vacations start off in Amman, and the flight to Tunis was under 4 hours. It worked out really well. I guess the force was with me.

Tips from Tunisia

Wrapping up a couple of weeks in Tunisia, where, among other things, I took a Star Wars tour. Specifically, this one: https://www.tourradar.com/t/154446 through a company called Saraharansky, but more on that another day; just a few photos for now.

The tour covered quite a bit of the country, as the starting point is in the north and most filming locations are in the south. All told, it as six days and five nights and I had both a tour guide and a driver. The tour was billed as a group tour and the company told me it wouldn’t go unless there were at least two people. I wound up being the only one.

The dilemma became what to do about a tip. Americans are the biggest tippers in the world; for now 20 percent is minimum, but I’m not in America, or even a place frequented by American tourists. (When it becomes clear I speak no French, more times than not, I’m asked if I’m German.) Tipping 20 percent on a tour package is a freaking huge number, and it’s never clear if it’s that amount total or that amount for the guide and the driver.

In other parts of the world, tipping just isn’t done or is minimal, like if your taxi ride costs 19.80 taxi ride, you’d give a 20 and leave the change. I really didn’t know where Tunisia stood on the whole tipping thing, so I turned to internet searches. It didn’t help.

Here’s an example of the information out there. It’s from one site under the heading “Should you tip your tour guide?” Under it, there’s a huge headline that says “Don’t tip,” then there’s the following:

“Hotels and professional travel organisations arrange group tours for all tastes tipping tour guides is unnecessary. If, on the other hand, you’re the adventurous type and you want to hire your own driver come tour guide, then you’re going to have to negotiate prices directly. Your hotel is a good resource for estimates regarding what a particular trip might cost and, if all goes well, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t add an extra 20 to 50 dinar for the ride of your life.”

Otherwise, tipping isn’t necessary, but you can do it anyway. Other sites yielded equally unhelpful information. One would say don’t tip, another would say absolutely. Amounts varied. “Between 5-10 dinars a day or more.” Yeah, that’s helpful. “It’s not expected, but do it anyway.” One said only to pay in Tunisian currency and another suggested Euros.

One of the guides pointed out the daily salary for tour guides and then turned around and suggested tipping an amount that was more than that. This is what happens on the Internet – everyone’s an expert and in the end, no one knows what the heck is happening in real life. One site, I think it was the one linked above, clearly copied and pasted from a separate entry, because on the Tunisia page, one section started, “In Morocco …” Yeah, there’s credibility on the Internet

When you just want to do the right thing, it’s never easy. I also had the dilemma that I’d signed up for a group tour, so this poor guy normally would be making more tips had more people signed up. Do I compensate for that? OTOH, I paid extra because I was single (damn single supplement!). But from a different perspective, I got a private tour at a group rate. What to do?

The night before I left the last tour hotel, I sat down with a calculator and ran some numbers, putting aside two piles. I hope I did the right thing. The guide was amazing. The driver was nice but on the last drive back (which was after I’d set aside the tip money), he took a wrong turn, insisting a road was finished. The tour guide told him it wasn’t and not to go that way, but he did anyway, and guess what? The road was not finished. (Cue “Speed”: “It’s finished on the map!” “I guess they fell behind.”) We wound up off-roading in a minivan and had to double back more times than I cared to count. It probably added two hours to the total drive time.

Anyway, I’m parked at an AirBnB on La Marsa beach now and head back tomorrow. Yesterday was another full day on Cap Bon, meaning I’ve pretty much seen all of this country, which I really like. By the time we hit the medina yesterday, though, I was whipped. I’ve no room in my suitcase and just couldn’t handle all the “come into my store, no pressure to buy” from every single shop owner.

My days in Tunis – six days before the tour and four on the back end – have been spent on little day trips with a guide the hotel set me up with. (Since he was an independent contractor, I didn’t tip.) We did Carthage, Dougga and then Cap Bon. I’m done. Today is the dentist and tomorrow I’m headed out.

More on Star Wars later.