A Taste of Hunger

On a snowy evening when most people would stay inside for hot drinks or conversations with friends, crowds of Carleton students arrived at The Hunger Banquet last Friday night to get a taste of hunger. Organized by sophomores Julia Fisher of Monterey, Mass., and Nina Schwartz of Allentown, Penn., The Hunger Banquet was held in Great Hall as an effort to raise money for Aldea Infantil “Virgen de la Calendaria,” a children’s orphanage in Puno, Peru.

Fisher and Schwartz spent the past five months planning the long-awaited event, working with Sodexho Food Service on Peruvian dishes, obtaining funds in cooperation with the Acting in the Community Together Center (ACT) and spending hours talking together to coordinate the optimal way to execute a banquet in which only 15 percent of the guests would be content by the time they finished their meal.

The Hunger Banquet garnered about 60 guests, with 15 percent of the guests enjoying an upper class meal of protein and vegetable fiambre and tea, 30 percent consuming a middle-class meal of a lighter style fiambre with potatos and corn, and about 55 percent of the guests found themselves with water and a small bowl of rice. The percentage of guests eating each type of meal was designed to mirror the economic situation of the world, in which the lowest class also is the largest class by far.

“What the Hunger Banquet is to us is another person’s daily diet in many parts of the globe,” said Schwartz, adding, “It is difficult to hear these statistics, but even harder to face them, often because confronting the issue requires us to break down its complexity and examine its variation.” She goes on to emphasize that hunger due to lack of food is not, by any means, the only issue the world should acknowledge. She cites other pertinent factors that need to be resolved, such as unstable politics, poor agricultural technology and inadequate social help.

As lower class guests shifted uncomfortably on the floor and upper class guests enjoyed their beautifully decorated dining tables, Fisher followed Schwartz with a speech and picture slideshow to present her experience in working with the children of the orphanage this past summer. She spoke of many problems at the orphanage, including housing, shortage of personnel, corruption, inadequate funding and insufficient protection from the outside.
“The bathrooms tend to be in disrepair, toilets breaking, sinks dripping, floor tiles missing,” said Fisher. She does, however, also acknowledge the spirit of the orphanage, where children love to play and celebrate holidays, despite their situation.

“There is a great deal of joy at Aldea Infantil, even though there is equally as much discontent and unhappiness.” said Fisher.

At the end of the night, Fisher and Schwartz smiled as they calculated the meal and cash donations from students, checks from Northfield residents and grant money obtained with the ACT center to find that approximately $900 will be donated to Aldea Infantil “Virgen de la Calendaria.”