Tales of a Tour Guide

Well my last group returned last week and not a day too soon. I mean that literally. Everywhere we went we seemed to be a day ahead of war.

We visited Kibbutz Erez adjoining Gaza. We watched the smoke from IDF shells passed bulldozers preparing to re-enter Northern Gaza. When the group asked where the border actually was they were surprised to be shown the fence a few dozen feet in front of them. The following day the army entered Northern Gaza and recaptured the former settlements of Alei Sinai, Nissanit and Dugit.

I thought we had passed the dangerous part when we went north. We stayed at Kibbutz Maagan on the shores of the Kinneret. On Wednesday, the group’s final day in Israel we visited Safed and shopped among the galleries in the old Jewish quarter. On Thursday Ketyushas hit Safed killing and injuring residents there. Maagan is now empty of visitors and the hotel is closed.

My next group is due to arrive on Wednesday, but right now we don’t yet know if they will come or not. Everything is on hold and we are waiting for news. With my recent record it might be better if they cancel.

A, (soon to be unemployed if this goes on much longer) tour guide

Things did improve since my last post. The group is going well and I just spent a very meaningful Shabbat with them. However now I have a different problem.

I have lost my voice.

Pretty much completely lost my voice

I open my mouth and a sort of whispery croak comes out.

It can’t even be called sexy – which is generally the one compensation you get when you lose your voice.

This is something of a problem for a tour guide who depends on…you know …speaking at loud volumes (or indeed at any volume). It would probably be comical if it wasn’t so annoying. I still have another four days of guiding with this group – and then another group arrives shortly after they leave.

Help! What does a tour guide do when they lose their voice?

Suggestions welcome in the comments box.

There is no doubt in my mind that male tour guides have it easier than female ones. They don't have the bus driver power struggle to contend with. They are not patronised or flirted with by aging tourists. No one criticises them for dressing too casually or not wearing make up (It has happened to me more than once. I kid you not) and most of all...they never have to guide with raging PMT (PMS for my American readers).

Today was one of my worst days guiding ever. Everything that could go wrong did. And to cap it all I was in the midst of hormonally provoked emotional meltdown.

• It began badly when I lost some jewelry at the hotel. I ripped apart the hotel room but couldn't find it.
• Then the lunch turned up 45 minutes late
• Then we arrived for the meeting we had scheduled in the afternoon in Ramle it turned out that they had forgotten about it and there was no one there to meet us.
• So I called ahead to our next location to say we would be arriving early. No problem they said. But when we arrived the message had not been passed along and I had to make more frantic calls and more waiting before our site guide arrived.
• I should mention that my phone battery that was registering full last night - dropped down to nothing this morning so I was doing all of this on no battery.
• Then I got a call from my bank to say that they couldn't approve the guarantee for my rent payments for the year (This is for some bizarre system that my landlord wants me to pay by, under which I have to have a guarantor for the whole year's worth of rent for reasons that I don't understand. I have not yet told the landlord)
• Then we got caught in terrible traffic coming into Jerusalem.
• After the traffic cleared we didn't make up much time since our bus seems unable to go above 50km an hour going up hill. The journey to Jerusalem is all up hill
• Then on arriving at the hotel I discovered that I had not had a room booked for me for the weekend, and since the hotel is now full they can't give me one. Which means I have a 45 minute walk to and from the hotel over Shabbat.
  
  My work day began at 7.30am. It will finish at 12.30am after I have finished the tour of the Kotel tunnels. It is only 9.30 now so I still have a few more hours of things to go wrong.