What it's like

The neighborhood kids are constantly trying to sneak in through our garden gates, I'm pretty sure they think it's a park. The walls are far too high to climb, at close to six feet, so they creep up to the open spaces in the iron fence, little eyes peering in at us, transfixed and glassy, like watching television. I wonder what they're thinking, while they're staring like that. They try to coax Mooshy near enough to feed him their homework, which I always find ripped to shreds and spread all over the place; English and Math lessons half digested.

"Namaste..." I try on the old 'Oh-aren't-you-cute-yes-I-love-kids' voice I used to be so good at. I am careful and quiet in my approach; pretending they are flighty birds or wounded things, but they scatter, running into the road with nervous giggles, stopping only when safely behind an open door or a mother's skirt. If I have chocolate they last only slightly longer; long enough to reach their small brown hands forward before scurrying off to devour the prize. They stand in windows, craning their necks to get a better view into our massive fishbowl of a house. They call to their friends, and amass in a convergence of little hyper bodies and heads, practically falling the two or three floors down just to get a better view. I catch them out of the corner of my eye and a gust of wind has taken them all away at once, the curtains fluttering only slightly in evidence that they were ever there at all. I smile to no one before I draw my own curtains closed with a sigh. Our neighbors may as well be ghosts; nosy or otherwise.

We are, apparently, interesting but terrifying.

It's been like this pretty much the whole time I've lived abroad. I'm used to getting almost run into by cars, bikes, and motorcycles - the driver turned idiot in the distraction of blonde hair and tattoos and pale skin. I'm used to it, but that doesn't mean I like it. I'm used to people taking a good few minutes to stop and just stare at me from the road outside my garden and chat amongst themselves about whatever it is people say about the neighbors. They do not look away or change their facial expressions when I find their eyes on me. They are not ashamed in the least to be caught in the act.

They are ghosts, all of them. They may as well not even exist for all the impact they have on my life and I secretly resent them for not being what I expect of a neighbor - of any human in close proximity day in and day out.

Why can't they just smile and say "Hello."?

It's a strange kind of attention, the whispering and laughter that follows the local foreigner down the street. It was worse in India where I was just as likely to wind up in the society section of the local paper; as if what I did with my weekends was all that fascinating. They've seen you often enough the past few months but still can't seem to get over the sheer fact of your existence.

I try to be kind and patient and smile in an all-knowing, self-deprecating kind of way, like, yes, I understand I'm the weirdest thing you've possibly ever seen in your life. But then again, sometimes I just stick my tongue out at people.