DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM These Chaminade students are in a "low income" situation as they sit on the floor eating beans and rice while the "high income" people are served fine food. The "medium income" people eat food that is considered to be between the two extreme groups in value.

Food for thought

After fasting, 140 Chaminade
students, faculty and staff
enjoy a Hunger Banquet

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By Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.com

It was a shared spiritual and physical exercise for the 140 Chaminade University students, faculty and staff members who joined a 10-hour fast Thursday. Consuming only water and juice was a combination of observing the tradition of self-denial for Lent and making a statement about global hunger.

The sharing ended when it came time to break the fast.

"Sit there, on the floor," the uniformed guard at the door of the Silversword Dining Room told 30 ravenous people when they arrived for the Hunger Banquet.

They gathered on mats around pots of rice and beans to be served in Styrofoam bowls.

"Let me escort you to the table," ROTC member Harry Zabala told seven, the chosen few, offering his arm to the ladies as he led them to dine with tablecloth, cloth napkins and good dinnerware on the table They were served salads, chicken-potato-and-gravy dinners with a variety of cookies for dessert.

And 20 others, given "middle-class" dinner tickets, were directed to unadorned tables and a buffet of chicken curry-rice-mixed vegetables which they ate from paper plates.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Malia Kibaba, left, and Leinaala Ahyo react to their "low income" situation as they sit on the floor eating beans and rice while the "high income" people are politely served fine food. Everyone participating fasted for 10 hours before showing up in the dining room for the Hunger Banquet.

Even the first-timers at the annual dinner understood that it was, as Marianist Brother Tom Heinle explained, "a metaphor for how the world eats."

"Let us be mindful that we do not share the poverty and injustice in much of the world," he said in a pre-meal prayer. "Help us to make a start. Help us to be hungry for the basic rights of all humankind."

The fasting participants collected pledges from supporters, with a goal of at least $1 per hour for not eating. Heinle said they raised an estimated $2,000 for Oxfam which runs 5,000 aid and education programs in 100 countries.

Junior Brandon Alana said he also chipped in the money he would normally pay for breakfast and lunch. "Just fasting won't end world hunger, but it raises awareness. Living in Hawaii, we don't see the worst reality of poverty."

Senior Ryan Valdez relished the first-class menu. "I felt guilty because my friends are eating less than me. It's a good exercise, it makes the point."

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Aulii Tada is escorted by smiling Harry Zabala to the "high income table." He uses his most courteous personality while escorting her, but turns on his unruly personality when telling the "low income" people where to sit.

Environmental studies professor Gail Kaaialii told the group that the fine diners represented the 15 percent of the world population who have enough to eat and in fact consume 70 percent of all grain, directly or as meat from grain-fed animals.

The "middle income" diners reflected 30 percent of all people, she said. To demonstrate that they "live on the edge and ... lose one harvest, suffer one drought or one illness and you're down" they found scenarios written on their tickets of changes in life circumstances that sent some to join those on the floor.

"I am so super hungry ... and also really tired," said junior Lorea May Amor when she entered.

The random ticket distribution put her in middle-class seating. But with a ticket describing a person losing a marginal job in a poor economy, she was doomed to join friends on the floor for the poor folks' meal.

Those on the floor represented 55 percent of the world's people who make less than $765 a year. But the beans and rice were hot, and many filled up their bowls more than once. And chimed "yes" when Kaaialii asked "How did you feel about the meal, did it taste better because you're really hungry?"

"Lent calls us to prayer, fasting and sacrifice," said Heinle. "Fasting is a religious tradition found among many faiths. Satisfying as it can be spiritually, there are so many for whom going without food is not by choice."

Said junior Hallie Parsons "it's sad we only do it once a year."

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