A Siren in a Sea

     Today Miss Pema, the administratvie assistant at school who has been helping us get settled, told me that she had asked a couple of people at the school how old they thought Grace was.  Miss Pema had asked them because when I told her Grace was 15 (we were pulling together various pieces information for our resident permit application) she was shocked. Can you guess the consensus?  21 or 22 years old!  In Gangtok, Grace sticks out like a siren in a sea of the masses. She is tall, the tallest girl at the school, she is blond(ish) and she is beautiful.  When we go to town people stare at her in disbelief.  After the first day of it, she insisted she was never going out in public again, but we must do what we must do.  Over these short two weeks she has gotten more comfortable with the attention and sometimes gives a long, hard stare back at them.  I can't say that our experience is helping us understand what it is like to be part of a minority population because I believe most often minorities are treated poorly, as less-than's. We are having the opposite experience, being exalted -- everyone wants to make us happy -- and that is also disconcerting. What did we do to deserve any special treatment?
     Every once in a while we see other white people in town.  The funny thing is, we stare at them as much and as long as the Sikkimese do!