Milk and Potatoes

[Shin]

I read recently about the world's second oldest woman currently a Peruvian woman. (The oldest is a Japanese lady, Misao Okawa.)

The article says she is 116 and lives in the Andes in extreme poverty. She was born December 20, in the year of Our Lord 1897, as Filomena Taipe Mendoz.

"I am not of the past century, young man, but the other one... I am very old," she told an official accompanying her to cash the first check of a retirement program for seniors living in extreme poverty.

"My secret to longevity is a natural diet: I always ate potatoes, goat meat, sheep milk, goat cheese and beans," said the wizened Taipe Mendoza, who has never left her dirt-poor village in Huancavelica.

"Everything I cook comes from my garden. I never had canned soft drinks.

"I had a very hard life, I was very a young widow with nine dependent children and I worked hard to raise them. Only three of them are alive," the ministry quoted her as saying.

"I wish I still had teeth," she added of her one wish.

[Shin]

I like a lot about this -- first her name is Filomena!

Then she is eating simple natural food and living a poor life, and she is a widow. 

[odhiambo]

116 years! that is a long life these days, a real blessing; nothing like Methuselah's though.
I wonder what he ate 

[Shin]

It makes you wonder!

I like that she wishes she still had teeth too! 

[Shin]

I think the world's oldest woman from Japan likes to eat sushi!

[susanna]

Somewhere around Indonesia (I think), there are many people who live into their 100s, and a large part of their diet is sweet potatoes.   I think it was Dr. Oz who mentioned this on his show, then for  months afterwards you couldn't find a sweet potato in the stores.   

[Poche]

I remember reading about a woman who was 116. She lived in Byelorussia. Her one wish was to be able to go to confession. 

[CyrilSebastian]

                     In my maternal grandmother's neighborhood, there was a Catholic lady whose first   
                     name was Philomena. One of her grandsons was ordained a Roman Catholic priest.

[whiterockdove]

I read somewhere a wonderful mag. article about a widow living way out somewhere on  the Tibetan  high plains. She milked a yak and cooked rice in a solar cooker. That was it!  Oh yes, and tea.  Great photos of her in this tidy, plain little cabin built of clay, dung, something.....  It was very sturdy and snug.
 
I like to think of her living a simple life of prayer.

[Shin]

My dearly departed great grandmother is named Philomena too. 

[whiterockdove]

Eternal rest grant to her, oh Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her.