Hunger Games... I mean banquet

So last night I went to BYU's 21st annual Hunger Banquet. If you haven't heard of it, you pay for a dinner that will most likely be on the floor. When I mean the floor, I mean you are sitting on cardboard, sharing a tiny cup of rice and beans with your neighbor, and scooping them up with a tortilla because you don't get silverware. Thirsty? You drink dirty water out of a plastic bag. (It's not really dirty people, don't contact the Health Department and try to sue.) And you do all of this for about three hours. And it hurts to sit on the floor for three hours. But that's what you are getting into when you buy the ticket. It's a humbling experience, having a meal like millions of people in Africa do every day. With the live drumming in the background and the people dressed in yards of plain fabric, and the tiny (but accurate) portions of food, you really feel like you are in a third world country.

But I didn't sit on the floor. My date and I were one of the 10% of the hundreds of people there that sat in the "first class" section: white tablecloths, my own personal waitress, four courses, and (need I say) chairs.

I would honestly have rather sat on the floor. Even though I knew everyone there was all the same as me: we are all poor college students, that it was just a pretend simulation representing the worlds percentages of first class, middle class, and the rest of the world. I felt so guilty, sitting at a beautiful table eating a meal that should have cost me $30 when everyone else paid ten bucks for a meal that cost 15 cents. They even separated us from the rest of the group, making me feel very unaware of what exactly was going on "down there." It made me realize how clueless us Americans really are about the conditions of the rest of the world. Even when we want to try and stretch and see what's going on "over there", we are in totally separate worlds. It would take us to leave the comfort of our chairs and waiters and joining the people on the floor to see how they felt about the situation.

And there were people who shared their salads and bread and water with the groundlings. My date and I gave a piece of cheesecake to a group of four people to share, and from the look on their faces you would think they hadn't seen anything like it in weeks. The director of the Peace Corps gave an incredible speech, and the performances were all beautiful. It gets better? I came home with a souvenir! Josh and I took some of the artwork home with us... for free :) Which doubled for an umbrella as we walked home in the rain.

Overall, an incredible experience. For those of you who haven't yet experienced the Hunger Banquet... let the games begin!