Congratulations! I bet you could teach them! I assume this is at least government related; are all tour guides selected by the government?
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This is from Christine s Firehouse in NKC.
KC is the western border of BPT Nation which extends eastward to Indiana.
I’ve been in the PNW since the 80s but get communiques from the Homeland occasionally.
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Parts of Ohio, too. At least, I’ve gotten them in Dayton.
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Thank you. 
Tourist guide qualification is regulated by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board in collaboration with the “Sri Lanka Institute of Hotel management and tourism” which are government institutions.
They have a point in not allowing everyone interested to guide tourists because many of these random guides are opportunists. They have a million ways to cheat the unsuspecting tourists.
Licensed guides stick to the rules, and are trustworthy. There may be the occasional black sheep but generally they are good.
Language proficiency of a considerable number of those licensed guides, however, is not always good. I’m not surprised about that either 
But they manage to handle the itenerary’s locations fluently as they keep on delivering the same lecture every day.
There are two kinds of guides: “chauffeur guides” and “national guides.” National guides are regarded more “professional” and are usually placed higher.
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Congratulations and much luck on your guiding stint.
Your written English is superb, by the way. What I mean is, and in no way intending to be condescending, is that whilst I know you’re from Sri Lanka, but when I read you, you could be from New York or Los Angeles or London or wherever. More US-like, I guess, but still, impeccable.
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What I like about you is that you always seem to make the best of a bad situation in your home country. I know it’s bad (I keep up with Sri Lanka news). But your sense of humor is what I like best.
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To make a long story short. Stopped off at our local Chinese place for a takeout buffet fix your own container to go. Just went to fix my plate and the chicken on the stick that I put on top for the heck of it, had a bite taken out of it. I asked my husband if he did that. He said heck no! So stand forewarned. Either someone took a bite when no one was looking or they took it off someone’s plate and put it back. Makes me wonder.
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I need to keep my big trap shut. Good night everyone.
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I saw the comment and liked it. Sorry you deleted it!
But good night, too. My wife is shutting me off (closing the beer tap, I mean).
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It’s back!
I wonder why you deleted it? It reaffirmed my dislike of buffets (of any kind). I think I would have been seriously skeeved out by such a discovery.
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Yeah, me too, just yuck. Shudders.
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@CCE I never feel that a compliment from a native speaker or an educated person as condescending. On the contrary I am happy to hear that, especially having never been to any country in the West.
I can speak the language as fluently as I can write, although my accent is neither American nor British. My dream was to learn German too, but those days there was no internet, and no YouTube.
@Miss_belle I try to take the positive side of things as much as possible(sometimes unsuccessfully) because life is too short and we’ll never get out of it alive.
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Looks like it’s a place to avoid for ever, unless they have a valid explanation which I doubt they do.
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I prefer fried oysters, but have to admit that every time I eat raw oysters, something like this is always at the back of my mind. Paranoid I know. And yet my husband never gives it a second thought.
Maybe you should switch to clams?
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About 9 years ago, I got a real bad case of some kind of infection that gave me massive, um, intestinal distress for about two weeks. I had eaten raw oysters a couple different places that weekend, so it’s hard to know which one did it. The oysters tasted great both places. You just find yourself at risk sometimes. I still eat them.
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I’m with you on this particular paranoia. Also when I eat sushi.
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My daughter calls telling me that her car’s TPMS came on warning of low tire pressure. So she pulls over and gets her gauge out and of course it’s the 4th tire she checked before she found the culprit.
Here’s a question: These things are hooked up to the car’s computer. How hard would it be to teach the computer to tell you which one is the low tire?
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When I see the Gulf of Mexico from Galveston, the thought of sushi/sashimi makes me want to wurp. When I was in a law firm and had a really big Japanese company as a client. When the big dogs came here from Japan they took me out for all their faves, two of which were still alive, big shrimp and little gasping fish. I figured if they were alive on my plate, they likely came from the gulf. Yuck and yikes.
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