Bolivia records: Aymara herder is 123 years old

[Coyotl]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/bolivia-records-aymara-herder-123-years-old

FRASQUIA, Bolivia (AP) — If Bolivia's public records are correct, Carmelo Flores Laura is the oldest living person ever documented.

They say he turned 123 a month ago.

The native Aymara lives in a straw-roofed dirt-floor hut in an isolated hamlet near Lake Titicaca at 13,100 feet (4,000 meters), is illiterate, speaks no Spanish and has no teeth.

He walks without a cane and doesn't wear glasses. And though he speaks Aymara with a firm voice, one must talk into his ear to be heard.

"I see a bit dimly. I had good vision before. But I saw you coming," he tells Associated Press journalists who visit after a local TV report touts him as the world's oldest person.

Hobbling down a dirt path, Flores greets them with a raised arm, smiles and sits down on a rock. His gums bulge with coca leaf, a mild stimulant that staves off hunger. Like most Bolivian highlands peasants, he has been chewing it all his life. ............

[malaise]

1. Lovely

although I don't want to be 123

[Sheldon Cooper]

2. I'm weird. The first thing that crossed my mind is that this man,

who lived in an isolated hamlet (as the article states), has now been exposed to the germs of the AP journalists he met with. I wonder if he has enough of the right immunities developed and I hope he doesn't get sick.