Sí, po!: I Like

Yesterday, in Primero Basico (first grade), we practiced I like and I don’t like.

“What do you like?” I ask the class, and both hands and students leap into the air.

“Tomatoes! Tomatoes!” Juan Pablo yells as he jumps out of his seat. “I tomatoes!” he is bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet now, ignoring my attempt at a stern look and gripping the edge of his desk so he can jump higher.

“Javiera?” I ask, turning to the tiny girl whose right hand is straining towards the ceiling.

“I,” she says the first word exploding out of her mouth. Then she pauses, thinking. I squat down next to her desk so that I can hear her better.

“I like,” she says, pushing the k sound out of her mouth with effort.

I nod.

“I like cheese!” she says finally, and although her tongue trips a little on the harsh s at the end of cheese she is smiling.

“Good job!” I say, standing back up to address the dozen tiny hands still waving in the air. I ask and they answer for the next few minutes, until Juan Pablo has settled back into his seat and we have discovered that nearly everybody likes ice cream. Miss Yvonne, the head English teacher, is taping flashcards to the whiteboard when I hear Javiera.

“Miss!” she is calling, waving her arm in the air. “Miss!”

“Yes?” I ask, sitting down on my heels so that the rest of the students can see over me.

“What does, ¨ she says, and then stops, her forehead furrowing with concentration. ¨What do you like?” she asks.

I think.

I like when my train leaves the Vicente Valdés metro station, barreling up from underground and out into the morning. It’s early, and only the edges of the sun spill over the mountains, spreading a soft light across the city. I like the fresh smell of outside, a smell of cold and wide open space that pours through the open windows and flushes out the thick scent of the tunnels. I like the sound of the train, the hum it makes as it slides along the tracks in a path that mirrors the curve of the mountains. Most of all I like the mountains that stand steadily in the east, their white peaks pushing up into the sky.

Sometimes, the clouds are so low and thick that its hard to tell where cloud ends and mountain begins, what is snow and what is condensation. I like it more when the sky is clear and the sunrise colors the peaks pink, a shade of soft rose that fades slowly into tangerine. By the time I get off at my stop, Las Mercedes, and come out from the station, the sun has pulled itself out into the sky and the mountain tops are white again.

I turn to look at the board, but there are no flashcards depicting mountains or trains or the smell of a tunnel. Yet I can’t complain, because there are plenty of options—ice cream, cheese, tomatoes, bread, and ham.

“Miss?” Javiera asks again.

“I like cheese too,” I say, and it’s true.

View of Santiago from Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill in the center of the city.