Dear Cuenca

Dear Cuenca,

You may already know this, but I love you.  I love your huge cathedral with big blue domes.  I love your central park with scary stuffed horses for kids to get their pictures taken on.  I love your streets, some with huge excellent sidewalks and others with hardly a crumbling curb to perch upon.  I love your food, your soup, your aji, your exploding corn.  I love your people, and I really love your orphans.  I love walking around feeling like home.  I love the memories we have made together.  I love your car sirens and barking dogs and excessive amount of honking.  I even love your traffic.  I love your rivers and the laundry being done on the banks.  I love your fruit markets and I even can almost tolerate the smell of your open air meat markets.  I love your restaurants and the way you deep fry hot dogs.  I love your beautiful green hills.  I love your sunshine and your bursts of crazy rain.  I love your scary blue buses and your sea of taxis.  I love your lottery vendors, your ladies coming to get scraps for their pigs to eat, and your teenage sons walking down the street arm in arm with their moms.  I love your babies and I love your old people.  I love seeing giant pigs roasting beside scary guinea pigs on the side of the road.  I love how much you love soccer, and I love all the fireworks.

I guess what I am trying to say, Cuenca, is that I love you.  Let’s be BFF.

Love,
Kelsey