Do you have a favourite ice cream? I do. It is Helado de Mantecado. It’s made with cinnamon and vanilla. Whenever I smell these flavours, I am five years old again, sitting next to my father in his ice cream truck.

The truck belonged to my grandfather. My father was the driver and my mother worked in the back, serving the ice cream. Every day at lunch time, my father picked me up
from school in the ice cream truck. I didn’t like school. I cried each time my father left me there.

But I loved when he picked me up in his ice cream truck. I also loved having lunch at my grandparents’ house. The food was delicious and I would see my grandmother, my
aunts, and my cousins.

And of course I would eat ice cream.

After lunch we drove in the ice cream truck. My father played the same song on his truck to announce he was coming. Each day, he drove the same route in my beloved city of Santo Domingo East in the Dominican Republic. Whenever I became sleepy, I would place my head on my father’s lap and close my eyes.

I remember one day clearly. It was very hot, 38 degrees celsius. My father and I were driving to pick up my mother to start our route. I was tired that day so I was already asleep on my father’s lap. He shook me awake.

“We are almost home,” he said. “Time to wake up.”

Just as he spoke I smelled something that was not ice cream. And then we both saw smoke. It was coming out of our ice cream truck. My father told me to get out and I jumped onto the road. I watched him open the hood to check the engine, which was full of smoke.

He yelled for help.

Some neighbours came and brought sand. They threw it on the engine and quickly put out the fire. But my father and I had to walk home. The truck would need to be repaired.

When I began to cry, my father said, “It’s not that far to walk!”

But I was not sad about this.

“The children will not have ice cream,” I said, tears falling down my cheeks.

My father laughed. “They will have ice cream tomorrow,” he said and picked me up and carried me home.