story time

Here it is, the India story I just wrote for an assignment that I referenced in a previous post. It's a bit long and a bit crude in some places, sorry, but I feel like posting it anyways... Why not.

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I never thought the act of taking a good crap was a luxury until that afternoon I found myself jonesing for a decent toilet seat in the middle of a rice patty in India.

We had been traveling across Andrah Pradesh in southern India for three weeks—six grown men and two young women, both of us named Danielle, hugging our elbows and knees in a small SUV that was intended to fit only four comfortably. Even with our eight adults and ten suitcases we felt like we were squandering resources as we passed motorcycles carrying families of four, and rickshaws with twelve Indians hanging out the sides, a goat in the lap of the driver, and a crate of six dozen eggs strapped precariously to the back.

This was our last night of teaching Bible stories. The next day we would climb into that once white SUV and make the six-hour drive to Chennai where we would spend our last two nights in India before boarding the plane back to the States. For this final session, our Indian driver and translator had driven our group two hours outside of the city of Vanyambadi to a small farming community. We pulled in to the center of their village to find all sixty or so locals waiting for us. All the buildings of the village were contained within a fifty yard square and in the center was a small open area of hard packed earth, fringed by palm trees, where they had gathered all of the children together. At the narrow end of this rectangle of open space was a row of seven bright blue plastic chairs—one for each of us six sweaty and pasty Americans and one for our Indian translator. The driver would wait with his car.

We took our seats humbly, having learned by now that they would accept nothing less than our being seated while they either stood or sat on the ground to listen. This special treatment was perhaps the most unpleasant aspect about my time in India. I didn’t like being treated like the soft and spoiled American I knew I was. The children sat cross-legged in the dirt immediately in front of us, packed together with their elbows overlapping and their dark eyes wide with awe. They giggled nervously when we smiled at them, and blushed uncontrollably and grabbed each other’s arms with glee when we winked at them. When a camera was revealed, chaos ensued, each child determined to be in the frame.

After an introduction from the local pastor, we began our lessons. Rick taught the story of creation, Danielle #1 followed with the story of Jesus and the ten lepers, Lee taught the story of Easter, and I finished with the resurrection and the promise of heaven.

After an hour of sitting and listening to the others speak, I suddenly became uncomfortable.

The Indian diet was taking its toll on all of us. Twenty plus days of nothing but vegetable fried rice, naan bread, bananas, and mangoes will have plenty of effects, but constipation is definitely not one of them. We were popping Pepto-Bismol pills like they were candy, and after one uneasy morning, we scoured the fine print and were relieved to find that waking up with a black tongue is one of the normal side effects of such consumption. We spent the long car rides wishing for things we had never thought to wish for—being able to drink straight out of the tap, showering with a real showerhead and not the bucket of water and a cup we were given each morning, and being able to pass gas with confidence instead of worrying that you were instead—well, I’ll stop there. The point is, consistent and reliable bowel movements had become a privilege, and the need to “go” was no longer something that could be avoided with careful planning or even self-control.

Behind all of the children and adults I saw a small building that looked indicative of the standard Indian outhouse, and I quietly excused myself and walked along the outside of the packed crowd toward the building. I opened the door, and much to my dismay the dark room consisted of a flat cement floor with various bowls and cups stacked in the corner and one large tub filled with water. In the center of the floor was a small round hole that looked like the destination hole in a game of mini golf. Although I hadn’t seen this specific style of restroom yet, I had heard that it was fairly standard—one would relieve themself on the cement floor and then throw water across the surface to wash everything down the small drain hole. I took one look at that hole and decided I sure as heck was not going to try to go #2 down it.

As I stood in the doorway pondering my future, a young Indian woman came up behind me and began asking me questions in Telegu. I shook my head apologetically to indicate I had no idea what she was trying to communicate.

“Toilet?” I asked tentatively.

She nodded in recognition and pointed at the hole, “Toilet.”

I sighed and said again, this time with raised eyebrows and a hint of panic, “No, toilet.”

Her eye widened and her head bobbed from side to side in the typical Indian method of affirmation. She turned and walked a few steps further away from the crowd, then beckoned me to follow her. As she led me toward the huts, another young woman with a baby on her hip joined us. The first woman spoke rapidly and the second woman glanced over at me and bobbed her head as well, “Aaah, toilet.” I was a novelty and she wanted a part in my rescue.

They lead me through a dozen small houses until we came to the home of the first woman. She gestured for me to wait and hurried inside. I stood awkwardly while the second woman rocked her baby and stared at me. She couldn’t have been much older than me. Her nose was pierced with a gold flower and her rough, dark hair was pulled back tightly into a low braid. The first woman soon emerged from the house with a large bowl of water and a cup and beckoned once again for me to follow her.

They led me with purposeful steps through the simple clay buildings and roaming chickens and goats grazing on discarded items. I followed, two paces behind, my conspicuous Teva sandles tracing the path their small bare feet left. Their backs were lean and the mother’s arm that carried the baby was strong from the extra weight. Their long braids brushed against their purple and orange saris and swayed with each step, bridging the stretch of dark skin between the skirt and bodice sections of their saris. The baby continued to stare at me from over her mother’s shoulder, her fist in her mouth and the whites of her eyes a stark contrast against the deep brown pupils and skin. Her ears were pierced and she wore an oversized shirt.

I became convinced that baby was smirking at me, and I felt even more awkward in my pale yellow cotton tee and long teal skirt with elastic waistband my mother had helped me sew. I traipsed behind, self-conscious of the sweat sliding down the front of my neck, of my thin and frayed dirt colored hair, of my pretentious sandals, of my bulky clothes, of my soft white gut under my thick cotton shirt, and of my overall naivety in this foreign country. And I just knew that baby was staring at me, thinking, Oh you silly tourist, you don’t even know how to shit without our help.

All buildings behind us now, I became concerned that the women hadn’t truly understood my needs. By now my situation was becoming urgent and I was becoming impatient, but we continued to walk. We walked along the edges of the rice patty until we found a narrow dirt path that navigated straight through the vegetation. We followed the path for another hundred yards until we reached a small growth of shrubs and two gnarled trees clustered together in the center of the expansive field. The first woman finally halted in front of me and with a very matter-of-fact tone, handed me the bucket of water with the cup floating inside, stepped a few paces away, turned around, and began conversing fluently with the other woman, their backs toward me.

So there I was, a girl from Wisconsin wearing a long homemade skirt, squatting in the middle of a field in India, a bowl of water in my hands and two strangers and a baby not ten feet away from me, thanking heaven for the toilet paper I kept folded in my waistband.

When I had finished, I straightened up and walked back to the women. They turned and smiled shyly at me, and I grinned back. On the way back to the village I walked alongside the women, a strange satisfaction and pride running through me. They giggled at my chewing gum and I laughed with them, not minding, savoring these few rare moments I felt like I had deserved throwing off the label of tourist.

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