Can anyone suggest a reason why an outfitter would not want a client to tip his staff?
When settling up at the end of a Zambia hunt, I asked the owner/outfitter/PH about tips. He said he'd bring the people he wanted me to tip to our chalet. Five minutes later he came by with three guys who had carried our luggage, and instructed me what token amounts to give each. I asked who else, and he said nobody. He did not however refuse the tip I offered him personally.
After he left, I sat on the bed congratulating myself on the money I'd saved, several thousand or so I had planned for tips. Then I thought about it more deeply. No wonder the staff had been so unfriendly. My wife and I had hardly received a smile or hello the entire week. And I thought: What about the assistant PH who had accompanied us on four hunts? He was sort of a ditz, but had been friendly and respectful to me and my wife and helped me bag a puku.
What about the tracker, who had trailed a buffalo herd for five hours and three times put himself at risk when we made contact with the buffalo, before I got a shot at a bull?
What about the cook who had made the delicious meals? The housekeepers?
I'd gotten along with the outfitter, but who was he to tell me who to tip on MY safari? So I went looking for people to tip. But the camp was oddly empty except for the three guys now loading our luggage into the truck, whom I'd already tipped. Finally I found the assistant PH in the kitchen and tipped him a few hundred bucks. His eyes bugged out at sight of the money, and the next thing I knew he was pumping my hand and saying "thank you" over and over. It got embarrassing. I finally had to pull away.
As we were leaving, the outfitter stopped the truck to talk to an assistant. Out of the window I spotted our buffalo tracker, and I got out and tipped him three twenties. His smile must have lit up the forest-- a smile I felt we'd been missing the whole week.
I think the outfitter was mad at me, but I never could figure out his attitude.
