Can you juggle four soccer balls at once?Can you bounce o...

Can you juggle four soccer balls at once?
Can you bounce one off your head and keep juggling?
Can you let one ball drop to the ground and kick it back in line with the rest?
Can you flip a ball behind your back and up overhead while juggling?

Would you do this in a crosswalk of a busy intersection at eight in the morning?
Would you do this in that crosswalk while it was cold and drizzling?
Would you stay out there for hours, repeating the same performance for each change of the light?
Would you have done this as a young teenager?
Would that teenager have done this not for fun but to try to earn money?
Would you walk the line of cars after each performance hoping for some spare change?

This morning I watched that teenager.
He was not large physically and looked undersized for the task but he was huge in spirit.

Cuenca is adorned with interesting street performers -- some juggle soccer balls, one in a crosswalk I saw juggle three machetes while spinning a basketball on top of an umbrella balanced on his chin, all while hurrying before the streetlight changed and the roar of cars, trucks, and buses passed him by. There are well-rehearsed break-dancer routines performed in sync by 2, 3, 4 dancers. Other surprises await around the corner.   

There is more than what some will see as only the desperation of poverty in play here.
It is not only what is done but how it's done that amazes and inspires. 
That amazement and inspiration can be found in the people of Cuenca.