Loretta uses her thumb to wipe the smear of chocolate off Cristobal’s cheek.  There are only a few minutes left of recreo, and as soon as she has finished he races off to rejoin the game of throw-the-tennis-ball-as-far-as-you-can-and-then-everyone-run-after-it. 

“His mother told me to look after him,” she says, shaking her head as if she has spent decades keeping little faces clean.  Loretta is in third grade and just barely taller than my hip.

“Is Cristobal your brother?”  I ask.

She shakes her head again, sending the blue baubles attached to her hair ties wobbling.  “He’s just my friend.”

The bell rings, signaling the end of recreo.  Some of the students are lining up, but the boys chasing the tennis ball run past Loretta and me in a flurry of dust, still intent on their game.  When the ball comes back our way again Loretta catches it, gives her classmates a look of exasperation, and then marches off towards the classroom with her pigtails bobbing behind her.  The group of boys, sweat on their foreheads and dust on their navy uniformed sweaters, make their way over to the line outside the classroom door.  Cristobal, at least, has clean cheeks.

The music starts up as the file into the classroom, first the line of girls and then the boys.  The celebration of the 18^th of September continues for the entire month, long past the actual day of independence, and the school is preparing for the celebratory dance showcase that is happening on Saturday, when every class will perform a traditional Chilean dance as well as a piece from another country, and their parents and tios and abuelitos will come to watch them and eat empanadas. 

The music is especially loud here in 3A, close to the center courtyard where the stage is being built and the dances practiced.  The PE teacher is using a microphone to call instructions to the dancing students, and he is either holding it too close to his face or playing the volume too loudly, because his words are distorted as they bounce into the classroom.

I’m positive that we’ll never get anything done, but I close the door and Miss Cecilia writes the date on the board, and even though it sounds like there is a football match or a trivia night going on outside the students get out their books and stretch their hands up to answer questions.  Juan Pablo, sitting in the back against the window, looks out longingly towards the music.  We can’t really see the dancers from the classroom—just the occasionally teasing flick of a white handkerchief—but he leans out the open window anyway.  Surprisingly, he is one of the few students who can’t seem to ignore the music—Javiera, sitting next to him, is dying to tell me that camels have big flat feet and store water in their humps (we’re reading a book called Wonderful Wild Animals—can you guess what it’s about?)

The teachers cannot wait for Saturday, because after Saturday the dance practices will stop and they won’t have to yell over traditional music from any country.  The students are excited for Saturday because they have been practicing for weeks and they will finally get to wear their costumes, the long skirts and wide-brimmed hats.  I’m looking forward to Saturday because everyone tells me it is the best event of the school year. 

The classroom is decorated with red, white, and blue streamers, and a large Chilean flag hangs on the back wall, the bottom edge draping over the row of backpacks on hooks.  Loretta is the first to finish the exercise, copying sentences down from the board and correctly using “there are” versus “there is.”  Somehow, even with the sound of the music and the PE teacher calling out names and steps, almost everyone behaves, so at the end of class we give out stickers. 

All in all, not a bad way to spend an hour.