A Latrine by Any Other Name
As Chaitanya and I walked around Hyderabad the next day, I was awestruck at the extreme contrasts of sights, sounds, and smells. Hyderabad was/is a city of impossible and improbable contradictions — the most notable being the brightly colored and gold-layered temple archway and walls on one side of the street and an open public latrine on the other. At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Are they really . . . ? Noooo! Surely not! Oh, my goodness! They are! Men were actually lined up and urinating into or squatting over a trough by a brick wall — out in the open!
And although there were no formal accommodations for women, I did see a few women squatting nearby with their long flowing saris providing some degree of privacy and modesty.
I was so shocked that I just stopped where I was, not realizing I was standing in the path of oncoming vehicles. I was only vaguely aware of Chaitanya tugging on my arm. "Mom! Mom! You not stop here. Not safe! Mom! You come now!"
As I stepped to the side of the road, suddenly there in front of me was a man perched on a 4-wheel wooden dolly, atrophied legs folded under him and horribly calloused hands and knuckles — obviously from using them to move himself along — folded on his lap. He was so malnourished that his leathery black skin barely covered his bones. He looked up at me with sunken hollow eyes that seemed to say, "It's okay. I'm not going to ask you for anything. I'm used to people not seeing me."
My heart broke and I thought, "Lord, You didn't prepare me for this!" I dropped to my knees and laid my hands on his. I tried to pray, but started to cry instead. I heard Chaitanya praying and I knew the Holy Spirit was praying through my tears, so I didn't try to stop crying or get up or do anything that might hinder what the Lord was doing in that moment.
When I finally rose to my feet again, I saw that a small crowd had gathered, obviously curious about what this big white American woman was doing. In the crowd was a group of about 6 or 8 lepers, all women, who pressed in a little closer, hands extended, hoping for some small token of kindness.
I took hold of the nearest hand and pulled the woman closer. I heard Chaitanya yell and warn me not to touch, but I didn't care. I kept thinking about the story in the Bible when Jesus confronted a leper and asked him what he wanted. The man said he wanted to be healed, but instead of healing him right away, the first thing Jesus did was touch him. Jesus knew that the man's spirit was more wounded and in need of healing than was his body.
As I drew the woman closer and began to gently hug her, the other women pressed in for me to touch them. I looked up at the woman and saw tears streaming down her face. I began to cry again. "Ohhh, Lord!" I cried. "I wasn't prepared for this!"
I don't know how long we stayed in that place, as long as it took for me to hug each person who wanted a hug, to whisper a prayer or speak a blessing over them, and to give each of them a small offering.
We spent a couple more hours walking around, doing a little shopping, grabbing lunch, and stopping to minister to people as the Lord led. Then, back to my room for a rest during the hottest part of the day. After being out in the sun and dusty, bustling city half the day, I was amazed at how refreshingly "cool" my 100-degree room was! I was so exhausted that even that 2-inch straw mattress on plywood felt pretty good to my tired achy bones . . . and I didn't even care about the dozens of spiders clinging to the ceiling above me. (Now, that's tired!)
I awoke a few hours later when Chaitanya rushed into my hotel room and excitedly exclaimed, "You come now! I got us last 2 seats on train. We must hurry! Train leaving in 10 minutes!"
I was excited. I hadn't been on a train in years and I just knew it would be an adventure to remember. Of course, I had no idea how right I'd be about that . . . !
We grabbed my luggage and started running — well . . . Chaitanya ran, I waddled really fast — to the train that would carry us to Chaitanya's home. When we got to the train, Chaitanya threw my bags to a Cooli (Indian porter) and ran back to grab my hand and assist me. The train was already starting to move, but with the Cooli pulling my arm from the front and Chaitanya pushing me from behind, we got me onto the train. (I should explain here that at the time, I was dealing with a lot of chronic pain, plus I was about 50 pounds overweight as a result; so mobility and agility were often a challenge.)
As Chaitanya moved past me and I turned around to follow him to our seats, I was taken aback by the scene that lay before me. After everything I'd seen and done in the last couple days, you'd think that nothing would surprise me. But, you'd be wrong...
It's not that it was all that bad, really. It was more a matter of what I expected or hoped for and the fact that this didn't come close to measuring up. I learned later that there are 4 classes of cars on Indian trains: 2-tier a/c cars and 3-tier a/c cars with relatively clean floors and upholstered benches, and clean sheets, blankets, and pillows; a/c cars with clean floors and padded upright benches with fold-out tables; and "sleeper class" cars with double-booked occupancy, filthy floors, hard wooden benches, and no bedding. Guess which class we had . . . !
Chaitanya lay down on the berth above me and went to sleep almost immediately. But, between the hard wooden bench, choking stench of body odor, urine and piles of garbage, plus the intense heat, I was barely able to sit still, let alone sleep.
After about 3 hours and 2 bottles of water, I realized, to my dismay, that I needed to find a toilet. I asked, "Toilet?" of one of the passengers sitting on the floor across from me, and he motioned toward the back of the car. I grabbed my cane and, stepping around and over bodies — some sleeping, 
some watching curiously to see what this tall white woman with a cane was up to — I made my way back to the nearest vestibule. I opened the first door with a sign "Toilet" on it and peered into a dark room with a very wet wooden floor and stainless steel urinal in the floor. "Must be the men's room," I thought. I turned around and opened the opposite door. Uh-oh! Same thing! Now what?
I looked around for a third door, perhaps one with the universal silhouette of a female or any sign that would say, "Welcome, Linda!." Heavy sigh...! No such door. No third door at all. Nothing but men sitting all around on the floor, all eyes on me. I don't know if they understood my confusion and dismay or if they were merely curious because I was as much an oddity to them as they and their culture were to me.
It didn't matter. I had to come up with a game plan . . . and quick. I decided to go back to my seat and not drink anymore water. Yeah, right! Like I could UNdrink all the water I'd already drunk! As the train whistled its way through the dark countryside, every clickety-clack made me painfully aware that my bladder was not going to be ignored much longer!
Unable to avoid the inevitable any longer, I got up and made my way back to the toilets. I opened the first door, took a deep breath, and stepped inside onto the wet painted wooden floor. I slid the latch on the door to the closed position, and turned to analyze the facilities and figure out a way to use them. It didn't take a genius to know that squatting was called for; but with my physical limitations, there was no way I could accomplish that — at least, not in the "usual" manner.
"Let's see . . . Okay. I guess my feet go here," I surmised as I stepped onto the foot pads. The foot pads were wet and very slippery, and my right foot slid off and into the toilet. Yikes!
Thankfully, my foot wasn't caught, but there also wasn't any toilet tissue or anything to use to wipe off my shoe. Oh, goodie!
After further analyzing the layout, I realized I would need to use the toilet backwards so I could hold onto the pole at the back to assist me in trying to squat. Of course, that meant I'd be peeing on the edge of the toilet instead of into the hole, but hey! A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Right?
So, I turned around, got myself as ready as I could, grabbed the pole, and using my cane for additional support, tried to squat without falling over. At that moment, the toilet door swung open behind me! I yelled, "Hey!" and heard a man's voice, "Ohhhh!" Then the door slammed shut and I immediately peed down my leg and into my right shoe!
I wanted to cry . . .
Now what? With no toilet tissue, I had few choices concerning my next move, and I wasn't happy about any of them! I thought, "Ohhh, Lord! You definitely didn't prepare me for anything like this!
After I finally got myself put back together — in a manner of speaking — I took a deep breath, and opened the door to go back to my seat. Outside the door stood a little Indian man with his back to the door, arms folded across his chest, keeping guard to ensure that no one else would make the same mistake he had. Avoiding his gaze, I bowed slightly with hands together to thank him and hurried back to my bench.
At least I'd proven one thing. You really can't die of embarrassment . . . no matter how much you might want to!
