hunger:2 Robert Hefner Balancing heart and spleen Crossing the border to better understand 'the other' can help not just them, but us as well O NE m THE nan TH
wait for its first dew. It will drop like a gem. Catch it with your tongue. When you eat the heart of the matter, you'll never grow hungry again.' All of the characters who inhabit Remedios <strong>Street</strong> are suffering from their own hungers. Some of them are drawn together by their mutual hunger, others are torn apart; some survive their hardships, others don't. In the opening paragraph of the novel, the adult Nenita is looking back at that summer when she was 12: When we laid my baby sister in a shoebox, when all the banana hearts in our street were stolen, when Tiyo Anding stepped out of a window perhaps to fly, when I saw guavas peeking from Manalito's shorts and felt I'd die of shame, when Roy Orbison went as crazy as Patsy Cline and lovers eloped, sparking a scandal so fiery that even the volcano erupted and, as a consequence, my siblings tasted their first American corned beef, then Mother looked at me again, that was the summer I ate the heart of the matter. There is so much in that paragraph, from pathos and tragedy to humour and redemption, that is laid out on a platter to whet the appetite of the reader for the details, the recipes, the mix of language and food and human nature that make up this dish. Remedios <strong>Street</strong> is a microcosm of a world in which hunger and want coexist with wealth, in which the promise of the church is never far removed from the threat of the volcano. Though it is about a small street in the Philippines, it is also, as Sharan Burrow said, about larger 'communities of hunger'. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans has shown us that the balance between wealth and want, between haves and have-nots, can tip precariously, and sometimes catastrophically, in unexpected places. After Katrina, which brought a Third World flood to the First, it was the compassion of ordinary humans that ultimately surfaced, highlighting the muddy reality of officialdom's inability to cope with basic human needs in a time of crisis. 'We are living in an era in which compassion is no longer a part of the discourse,' Bobis says. 'It's all hard-line foreign policy in how we treat each other, impregnable demarcation lines, the border of the other and us. 'I thought you could talk about very basic things: food, hunger, mother love. The enemy feels the same hunger, and maybe if we can find a connection, then we can put ourselves in the shoes of the other.' At heart, says Bobis, Banana Heart Summer is 'a book about forgiveness, a book about compassion for the mother, compassion for even someone who has hurt you. 'In a way it is an act of neighbouring with the enemy, it's crossing the border. And in that way you're doing yourself a favour because you're balancing your heart and spleen.' • Banana Heart Summer, Merlinda Bobis. Murdoch Books Australia/Pier 9, 2005. ISBN 1 740 45590 8, RRP 29.95. Robert Hefner is the acting editor of <strong>Eureka</strong> <strong>Street</strong>. Anchor your Faith in Understanding Consider taking one of these courses: >- Bachelor of Theology >- Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Theology (double degree with the University of Melbourne and Monash University) >- Graduate Diplomas in Theology, Counselling, Ministry, Spirituality, Spiritual Direction, Liturgy >- Masters degrees in Divinity, Arts, Theology, Ministry Studies >- Doctorates in Theology, Ministry Studies, Philosophy (03) 9853 3177 admin@mcd.edu.au www.mcd.unimelb.edu.au FEE-HELP available f or all courses Research funding also available NOVEMBER- DECEMBER 2005 EUREKA STREET 35
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