Tips

Not as in advice, as in gratuities. Take some single dollar bills with you on the plane because you need to tip about 5 or 6 people just to get from the airport to your hotel room and the bank may be closed when you get there. When you go to the bank to exchange money get lots of ten burr bills which is about $1 US. There is an endless need for tens. You will tip and tip and then tip some more. Tens are also useful for shopping. I find it hard to bargain when you are asking for change. Speaking of change, it is very hard to come by. You can get change at a restaurant or at a supermarket, but the vendors where you buy souvenirs will not have change. They will run around to their neighbors to get it for you, but they will be put out and you will have to wait. Tens are also good for the people begging on the street. (More about this in another post.)

Knowing how much to tip each person is not always clear (at least to me). I will tell you what we did, but I am not sure we always did the right thing. I should also mention at first glance some of these tips may seem optional, but they are not. They do not let you carry your own bags or open your own door.

People carrying bags - 10 birr each
Museum guide - 50 to 100 birr
Door man - 50 to 100 birr (on last day, there were 2 or 3 doormen)
Driver - 200 birr (last day)
Server - 20 birr (two families)
Room service - 10 birr

Some of these amounts may not seem equitable. Like tipping the museum guide $10 for an hour and the driver who drove us around all week $20. The difference is (to me anyway,) the driver is getting paid to drive us around, so it is really a "tip," where the museum guide in an "independent contractor," so to speak, and is not paid by the museum. Tips are his salary.