Aging Myself or Better Yet Having Someone else Do it for You

So I arrived at Stony Point (NY) Camp and Conference Center today. I am here for a few days of orientation and then off to Lima, Peru. After Lunch I was standing with a group of the volunteers that I had met in Louisville, KY during the placement event. A young (er than I) female approached, and I was thinking do I know her from the placement event, but no a little voice was telling me that I knew her long before that. Don't you just hate when that little voice is right? I DID know her. In fact ten years ago I was her 8th grade Social Studies Teacher at Bell Street Middle School in Clinton, SC. She was 13, and I had just graduated from college and was in my first year as a classroom teacher.
The young(er than I) person was Mary Kate. As soon as she said her name I remembered her and the whole class that she was in. There was Walter, Mary Beth, Hamilton, oh the list goes on. She said "I heard you make a comment or answer a question from the back of the room in the seminar this morning" and I remembered your voice. Should I feel flattered, warm and fuzzy or just plain old? Right now it is just hillarious, but I feel old too. Maybe I can convince myself I am not getting older, just better.
Mary Kate is a college graduate, has spent a year in Dallas in the Americorps program, and is now going to serve in the National YAV program in Nashville. How fantastic?!!! The 90 degreees of YAV separation strikes again....

Home Base

Less than a week until I board a plane bound for Lima, Peru. After two weeks of living and orienting myself to Peru in the capital city of Lima I will be moving into the Andes Mountains for the rest of the year. I will be living in a city called Ayacucho. It is a high altitude city without a lot of tourist activity except during Holy Week, when it comes to life with traditional parades and festival activity much like I saw in Antigua, Guatemala. The processionals, movement from celebration to somberness and back to celebration.
I will be living with a host family and working with an organization called Paz y Esperanza or Peace and Hope. They work in the area of human rights, focusing on those impacted by the civil war that took place in Peru in the 1980's.