Hungry.

If my calculations are correct, there are four types of hungry out there. The first type is the one I am most familiar with. I don’t know its technical name, but my roommate and I refer to it as something along the lines of the “It’s your own fault hungry.” It happens when you forget to go to the store, and the only food in the apartment is instant oatmeal and a potato that we found next to the refrigerator that is mostly there for decoration.
It’s in the midst of this type of hungry when you think, “I could go to Seven-Eleven and attempt to buy candy but they might as well change their name to “Seven-Whenever we feel like closing” because they are generally not open when the really, really big hungry sets in.” But it’s my own fault, really. Food would have been available if I had planned better.
The second type of hungry I like to call the “Sister Hungry,” because it’s the kind that Sister is always trying to explain to me. Sister is the homeless woman who lives outside my flat. She likes to sit on the curb of the side walk and argue with the man who sometimes claims to be her husband, and sometimes swears he’s just her brother. It usually depends on how sassy she is that particular day.
Sister is always hungry. And rightfully so: the woman is thin like a tree branch and stings like one when she lashes out at her husband/brother. Hers is the kind of hungry that is never really satisfied; the kind where there is just never quite enough food. “Sister Hungry” also results in me constantly carrying protein bars and potato chips in every purse and backpack I own so I can share some snacks on the way in and out of the flat. And it’s probably her sass, but Sister holds a place in my heart, and this can ultimately lead to “It’s your own fault hungry.” Because it’s when I pass her on the way out to a restaurant and sit down at those booths and stare at my food that my thoughts gravitate towards Sister. And I save half of the food to bring back to my girl faithfully on the pavement outside my home. Her toothless smile and a kiss on the cheek are generally worth it though.
Then there is the third type of hungry. It’s the “channel changing hungry” because that’s what everyone does when it comes on TV. Toddlers with knees and heads that aren’t quite in proportion with the rest of their tiny bodies. And I’m guilty as charged because when those ‘Save the Children’ commercials come on, I try and change the channel too, but that just isn’t really that possible or appropriate when we watch documentaries in my “Growing up in Africa” lecture. The ones where they show the Zimbabwean children crying in the dirt because there is no food today. Or tomorrow.
And when the man with the video camera (who everyone grows to hate) asks the little girl in her flower dress what she had eaten yesterday, she gets frustrated, throws her hands in the air and yells, “Upona!” Nothing. She didn’t get to eat anything yesterday.

And, that brings me to the fourth type of hungry. It’s the kind you get when Sister asks, “You got anything for a sister, sister?” and I don’t. Or when you watch those documentaries and you realize that you don’t have to go as far as Zimbabwe to find babies that have eaten “Upona” that day. Or that you were in that place you saw on TV and you saw those kids yelling in the dirt and you didn’t really do much more than smile about the little ones who tugged on your hands in those dusty streets. Because, I don’t really know what to do, you know? If I am supposed to bring candy bars around with me like I do for Sister, of if I just give them the money I have, or I just hold their brown little hands and say a prayer, or tell someone about it, or cry, because it breaks your heart if you think about it hard. Or if you think about it at all.
Then what I did was just take pictures of them because they love to see themselves on the screen afterwards, and then you have something to show everyone back home. A bright eyed, greedy souvenir, or something so you can say, “Hey, you know those beautiful hungry children on the TV? I saw them in real life. And they really do want food.” Or maybe you just don’t eat like they can’t eat and then ease that guilt because these days KFC plays more on my conscious than anything else out there. And this fourth type of hungry is awful and this hungry burns your soul and this hungry comes from the fact that I have enough and others don’t and I just don’t know what is supposed to be done about that.
Because you can’t feed this type of hungry.