Oldest person alive at 121 – and she’s in SA
Ventersdorp’s Martha Sehao can’t talk, but she smiles – a lot.
Upon hearing of Martha’s age, cleaners organised cake to celebrate her life.
In a dusty extension outside Ventersdorp lives Martha Hester Sehao who, according to Potchefstroom Herald, is the world’s oldest person. She was born on January 9, 1897, making her 121 years and four months.
Various sources identify Japanese woman Chiyo Miyako as the oldest person alive at the age of 117, but Sehao’s identification document proves that she is four years older than Miyako.
Sehao can’t remember exactly where she was born, but her daughter, Miriam Sehawa, says her supercentenarian (someone older than 110) mother grew up somewhere on a farm outside Ventersdorp.
She gave birth to seven children, four of whom are still alive, and has eight grandchildren. Surprisingly, she has no great-grandchildren to her knowledge.
Sehao and her daughter have been living in Ventersdorp Extension 8 for more than five years, but it is only now that she has captured the attention of her local community.
A group of Ventersdorp residents, who regularly clean the local streets, took notice of Sehao while cleaning outside her house one day. When they heard how old she was, they decided to have a cake baked especially for her.
The baker from Mikstok Tuisgebak Home Made was the person who notified a Potchefstroom Herald reporter about Sehao, knowing that this was big news.
The publication travelled to the nearby Ventersdorp with only an address that does not exist on Google Maps. And if it wasn’t for the JB Marks local municipal official Sydney Mnyakama, who knows the town well, this reporter would probably never have found Sehao.
The interview was a challenge since the old lady does not speak, she only smiles. And she does not understand English or Afrikaans.
Mnyakama helped translating from Setswana to English. After every question, Sehao looked excited and gave a big, toothless smile.
At times, it looked as if she wanted to jump up and say something, but her age limited her to just smiles.
She can no longer walk and with only a pension as a source of income, she can’t afford a wheelchair.
Her daughter stays at home to look after her mother but it was not easy, she said, as Sehao is frail and her bones brittle. Like a porcelain doll, it looks as if she could break at any moment.
So it came as a shock to hear that Sehao’s only health problem is high blood pressure and that she doesn’t visit the clinic that often.
Despite her age and possibly being the world’s oldest person, Sehao, with her big pink slippers and her crystal-clear eyes, looks as if she has a lot of life left in her. – Caxton News Service