# 9 Visiting

Visiting is when Red people consume the most Rez coffee. If visiting was an Olympic sport it would be dominated by the Red people of the world but it would be an event in the summer games. Here's why I figure that...Historically, most Red people were semi-nomadic peoples, in the winter we broke up into our smaller family groups, but come summer we we're all together at our summer camps. That's why summer is prime time for visiting. And that's why we can visit all day, for days on end and never get sick of all our relations stopping in unannounced.

Why it works for us:
1. Our kids have someone to play with. They're out of our hair and not fighting each other all because our visitor brought their kids along.
2. You have someone who will share the load. Visitors will help you fold laundry while chit chatting, they'll appropriately discipline all the kids when they're being crazy and they'll catch you up on gossip, (or they'll make you feel important because you have all the gossip.)
3. They'll get their oldest to watch all the younger ones so you can go out for a couple hours.
4. They bring random people with them, which means you can get your nosey on! That's exciting! You get to meet people who you've either only heard about or seen at the Northern Store - and you can totally ask them all about their lives because they're in your house.

But visiting is not all fun and games, there is a certain etiquette.

Here's some guidelines:
1. Always have a pot of coffee ready to go - even if it's 40 above and the big plastic spoon on the wall is melting.
2. Have some food. At the very least have something for a sandwich like bologna and bannock. Hey! You've got a houseful of kids to feed.
3. Give the visitor's kids some sugar. Be warned, this means your kids will whine 'till you give them something sugary too. But now you have the perfect excuse to send them all outside until one of them cries.
4. Go tie up your dogs, you don't want to have to shoot one if it bites some kid.
5. Keep a mop pail full of clean water by the door just in case you hear someone getting out of their car. You can pretend you were just washing the floors....