Su casa es mi casa, right?

Setting: Miami, Florida at a house belonging to Yolanda, a friend of my Auntie Libertad's from the Dominican Republic.

Occasion: Yolanda's birthday

Libertad, her son, a friend of hers, and myself arrived at Yolanda's apartment complex and waited in the parking lot until we got the call that it was safe to go in. This was a surprise birthday party and we didn't want to be responsible for ruining it! We entered Yolanda's house and were greeted by friendly welcomes. Yolanda told us to make ourselves at home. I sat down in the chair offered to me. I was a bit taken aback when Libertad's friend took this invitation quite literally, almost immediately going into the kitchen to start making herself coffee and getting out cheese and crackers that she then offered to others.

I'm not sure why I was so surprised, Yolanda had told us to make ourselves at home so doing so was appropriate, right? I guess I expected for us to sit down and then get offered something to eat or drink. It never even occured to me that we could just go into her kitchen and help ourselves. This got me thinking about what it means to be hospitable. We often say "Mi casa es su casa" but I wonder how often people mean it. In the Dominican Republic, when they say it they mean it!

What's your hospitality personality? Let's take a quiz and find out!

1) When you meet someone new that you get on so well with you are sure you will become great friends, you

a) Tell the person that s/he is welcome to drop in on you anytime and give them your contact information fully expecting the person to stop by your house unannounced on some random date to chat.

b) Offer your phone number and say that you'd like to get together some time.

c) Nothing. If your paths are meant to cross again, they will.

2) You just moved and a good friend of yours comes to check out your new digs. When s/he arrives you

a) Offer them something to drink or eat that you've just made hoping someone would stop by, get it for them, and then explain where all the food and drinks are so they can get what they want themselves the next time they stop by.

b) Offer them something to drink or eat and then get it for them.

c) Just hang out without offering them anything. You're not a charity, after all.

3) Say you're upstairs and you don't hear it when a friend lets him/herself into your home, helps him/herself to whatever food and drinks s/he finds. When you come downstairs to find him/her on your couch watching T.V., pigging out you

a) Give them a hug and ask if there's anything else you can offer them, giving them a hard time for not coming more frequently.

b) Are surprised and let them know they should call next time so you can prepare more then ask them if there's anything else they would like.

c) Scream. You don't like people invading your privacy and you let your friend know it!

Now let's see what your answers tell us about you!

Mostly a's: Congratulations! You are the epitome of hospitality! When you say "Mi casa es su casa!" you mean it with all your heart. You want people to help themselves to whatever they want whenever they want. You treat people like family.

Mostly b's: You are a great host/hostess in the more formal sense. You provide for your guests and want them to feel welcome but prefer to take care of them rather then have them raid your fridge. You like to control things in your house.

Mostly c's: You like your privacy and when you see people you prefer to be outside your home. When you do have friends over its on your terms and you don't entertain them. You're not a clown.

I'm mostly b's, although I'm working towards becoming more on the a's side. For some reason I'm possessive over food. Some sort of hording instinct, most likely a fault of evolutionary food shortage woes. If I share my piece of chocolate cake with you then it means I really think you're special!

My abuelo, from Spain by birth but raised in Cuba, noted that he feels that the level of hospitality changes according to the social class or wealth of people; he says that the poorer people are in the Dominican Rebpublic the more hospitible they seem to be. When I thought about it, I realized that the same seemed to be true of my experiences in Indonesia. Is it true that the more you have to share, the less you have the desire to do so?

So, now that we've established more or less your hospitality personality, consider what sort of guest you are. Are you attuned to the expectations of different hosts and do you adapt accordingly? In places like the Dominican Republic, when people tell you to help yourself to something, they really mean it and would be insulted if you "politely" decline the offer.

Go ahead, help yourself to some cake!

It takes a bit of crazy to do something that is, well, crazy

"'There are few lonely places in this world,' wrote scientist and traveler Henry Elliott in 1886, 'and the wastes of the great Alaskan interior are the loneliest of them all.' Enclosed by mountains on three sides, the interior of Alaska was a land which few people knew well.

In the decades after the Civil War, a few explorers, adventurers and prospectors made their way into this subcontinent, which covers half a million square miles on top of North America. Lieut. Frederick Schwatka came down the Yukon River on a log raft in 1883 and passed the mouth of a huge river known as the Tanana, the 'River of the Mountains.' The confluence lay almost at the geographical center of Alaska. Judging from the size of its mouth and the stories the Indians told, Schwatka thought the Tanana might be the longest unexplored river in the world." (Cole, Terrence. Crooked Past The History of a Frontier Mining Camp: Fairbanks, Alaska. Fairbanks: UA Press, 1991. pp. vii.)

An aerial shot of the Tanana river I took while flying into Fairbanks.

Lieut. Schwatka and his group built rafts themselves and floated the entire length of the Yukon all the way to the Bering Sea without knowing anything about the terrain. The group that came after his was lead by Lieut. Henry Tureman Allen and their mission was to explore the Tanana. They went up the Copper River, hiked through a pass in the mountains and then floated down the Tanana to the Yukon. It took them 3 months and they nearly starved to death. When they arrived at a trading post on the Yukon, traders greeted them in disbelief; to their knowledge no one had ever crossed the Alaska Range to the Yukon and they thought the feat impossible. Of course, Athabaskans had been living in this area for quite some time. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be literally the first person to set foot in the interior of Alaska.

I've been a tourist, a traveler, I've lived in places foreign to me, I've been adventurous, eaten "strange" things, gone places I'd never been before, but when I read or hear stories about people who charted territories that had never, to their knowledge, been explored before I am reminded that there's a whole nether category of people out there. People who are so driven by curiosity and the desire to expand, not only their, but also humanity's knowledge that they abandon their fears, or at least compartmentalize them well enough to realize their dreams. These people are everywhere, in all fields of study or "walks of life" and I wonder what it takes to become one.