Rosa Natera, the 100-year-old superhuman who won the battle against Covid - Barranquilla - Colombia

Tranquillity. So, bluntly, lady Elvia Rosa Natera from Consuegra says that this is the secret to reach 100 years healthy. It is a feeling that she has become her life partner and that not even the covid-19 pandemic could separate them.

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She says it sitting in her furnished wheelchair, with her legs stretched out, under the shade of a leafy mango tree planted decades ago in the large patio of her home, a traditional mansion in the Guayabal neighborhood, in the municipality of Baranoa ( Atlantic).

There, approximately 50 minutes from Barranquilla, she spends most of the day, but not alone. You are surrounded by Maravilla and Blaky Andrés, their dogs; Copito de Nieve and Morinda, his cats; some parakeets and a cockatoo that interrupt the prevailing silence and put the melody in the background; and her granddaughter Deisy Sarmiento, who does not lose sight of her for a second.

“I feel fine right now, in this heat…”, he says before letting out a laugh caused by the wind that messed up his white hair, which he rearranged by running his right hand through his hair.

But the 31 ° C and the sun in all its splendor, without a hint of rain, that suffocate the population do not bother Natera. On the contrary, it is a kick for him to tell his story and so many anecdotes about cock feeding.

The childhood of Elvia Natera

At present I cannot tell you how the campaigns are going, give me a few more days and I will tell you

Born February 14, 1922 in the house where he currently lives, which, as he recalls without fear of being wrong, was made of straw until it was rebuilt with material, as it is today.

He attended school during primary school and since then he has participated in political meetings in the region, spaces in which he ended up learning what he knows today. It was there in those meetings that they served to meet Fausto Consuegra, a follower of the Liberal party, whom she later accepted as her husband.

The couple organized and formed a home with nine children, five of whom are still alive. The family grew up with 19 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildrensome work in the field of teaching and others intervene in politics, a topic that he likes to talk about and listen to.

“Currently I can’t tell you how the campaigns are going, give me a few more days and I’ll tell you. What I can tell you is that they are going to come out better than before, because my granddaughter is here to represent us”, she expresses with pride and between laughs, which is why she has gotten into the habit of turning on the radio in the morning, every time her relative is going to intervene in the informative stations of the town.

There is no need to repeat the questions to Mrs. Natera, nor the conversations in which she participates daily, either in person or by phone. She puts her ears to work perfectly and the dialogue flows, other times she listens fandango, his favorite music; and on other occasions he has no problem stopping to listen to the melodious occurrences of the parakeets. At 100 years old, she has only been losing part of her vision.

Elvia Natera has no problem calling her grandchildren’s attention for any detail.

The time he got covid-19

I didn’t feel anything. I am going to tell you why: because I am quiet, I do not go to the street, I eat well, I have a good breakfast

And it is that the centenarian has healthy habits, which range from getting up early and praying to taking a walk in her wheelchair through the neighborhoods surrounding her place of residence, when evening falls.

“She still has a notion of time, she knows that we are in politics, in Carnival, she tells her granddaughters that they stop visiting her for a week. She likes bollo e ‘yucca, stewed chicken, Creole egg, she eats fish. At night she is given her pear juice and a nutritional supplement or fruit is given to her as a snack, ”says granddaughter Deisy.

Mrs. Natera’s care has increased, as she was diagnosed as hypertensive and six months ago she was positive for covid-19, after taking the test. Though she surprises everyone by stating how she felt about herself.

“I didn’t feel anything. I am going to tell you why: because I am quiet, I do not go to the street, I eat well, have a good breakfast, do my things quietly, nobody says anything, I walk calmly. I am a very calm girl, ”says the baranoera.

This is how Natera de Consuegra looked during the celebration of her 100 years together with her great-grandchildren.

They will not reach 100 years of age by putting things in their hair, gray hair does not hide, gray hair is wisdom

The symptoms that afflicted her, although apparently not entirely as indicated, were headache and rhinitis, so he had to suspend both walks in the municipality and visits to his home. Before becoming infected, he had applied a dose of the vaccine.

Of those two isolated weeks, she emerged victorious “thank God”, she repeats over and over again. And with more desire to continue partying at the tip of fandango, without leaving aside good food. oh! And to draw attention to the granddaughters who dye their hair, because she says that everything must be natural.

“They will not reach 100 years of age by putting things in their hair, gray hair does not hide, gray hair is wisdom. I tell young people not to be separated, to walk together, to be on the right path and not to go astray”, says Elvia Natera.

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This is how they celebrated the centenary

On February 14, the celebration of the centenary of this baranoera could not ignore, although Deisy Sarmiento points out that it was somewhat prudent, since the covid-19 has not gone away. Therefore, they held a family meeting at his house.

“Doctors have always advised us that because of his age his closest circle is always there. All their children attended, their children’s children and their children’s children’s children (laughs)”, says Sarmiento.

The living room of the house was decorated with pink, violet and salmon balloons, a large cake, enough for everyone to eat, a portrait of Doña Natera and the number 100 to go down in history on the centenary of a survivor of covid-19, in the midst of total tranquility.

Deivis Lopez Ortega
Correspondent of EL TIEMPO Barranquilla
On twitter: @dejholopez
Write me at deilop@eltiempo.com

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Human Rights? China Won that Winter Olympics Battle. Almost.

ZHANGJIAKOU, China — 

When three-time Olympian Gus Kenworthy took the remarkable, perhaps even brave decision to speak out against “human rights atrocities” while still in China at the Winter Games, the self-proclaimed “loud and obnoxious” British skier also proved that other athletes, had they chosen, perhaps could have used their Olympic platform to pipe up, too.

Because Kenworthy wasn’t hauled away and imprisoned, as Chinese critics of the ruling Communist Party routinely are. Doing so would have generated exactly the sort of global focus on the Chinese government’s authoritarian methods that it sought to avoid while global sports’ biggest show was in town.

And with the notable exception of Kenworthy, China largely accomplished that mission.

Olympians with any qualms about chasing medals in a country accused of genocide against its Muslim Uyghur population and of other abuses kept their views on those topics to themselves for the durations of their stay. And perhaps for good reason: They faced vague but, as it turned out, undeployed Chinese threats of punishment, constant surveillance and the sobering example of tennis star Peng Shuai’s difficulties after she voiced allegations of forced sex against a Communist Party official.

FILE – China’s Peng Shuai reacts during her first round singles match against Japan’s Nao Hibino at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia on Jan. 21, 2020.

“We have seen an effective silencing of 2,800 athletes, and that’s scary,” said Noah Hoffman, a former U.S. Olympic skier and board member of the Global Athlete advocacy group pushing for Olympic reform.

FILE- Noah Hoffman, of the United States, competes during the men’s 15km freestyle cross-country skiing competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 16, 2018.

Kenworthy, speaking to The Associated Press before his 8th-place finish in the halfpipe final on the Games’ penultimate day, laid out why.

“We’re in China, so we play by China’s rules. And China makes their rules as they go, and they certainly have the power to kind of do whatever they want: Hold an athlete, stop an athlete from leaving, stop an athlete from competing,” he said.

“I’ve also been advised to sort of tread lightly while I am here and that’s what I am trying to do.”

Immediately after competing, however, the proudly gay athlete’s gloves came off.

He prefaced criticism with praise for China’s “incredible job with this Olympics” and carefully calibrated his words. But unlike other Olympians, he couldn’t bite his tongue until he got home. Kenworthy aimed jabs not only at the host country’s rights abuses and “poor stance on LGBTQ rights” but also at other athletes he said try “to appeal to the masses” and avoid ruffling feathers.

“I’ve already kind of accepted that that’s not what I’m gonna do,” he said. “I’m just gonna speak my truth.”

In fairness, Olympians found themselves squeezed on all sides in Beijing. Campaigners abroad hoped they would spark global outrage over the imprisonment in re-education camps of an estimated 1 million people or more, most of them Uyghurs. China, backed to the hilt by the International Olympic Committee, didn’t want critical voices to be heard. And their own voices told athletes to focus, focus, focus on the pursuit of Olympic success that they, their coaches and families sacrificed for.

The sweep and vagueness of a Chinese official’s threat before the Games of “certain punishment” for “any behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit” appeared to have a particularly sobering effect on Beijing-bound teams. Campaigners who met with athletes in the United States in the weeks before their departure, lobbying them about Uyghurs and the crushing of dissent in Tibet and Hong Kong, noticed the chill.

“Prior to the statement, we had been engaging with quite a few athletes,” said Pema Doma, campaigns director at Students for a Free Tibet. They “were expressing a lot of interest in learning more and being engaged in the human rights issue.”

Afterward, “there was a very, very distinct difference” and “one athlete even said to an activist directly: ‘I’ve been instructed not to take anything from you or speak to you,'” she said in a phone interview.

Other concerns also weighed on Olympians, way beyond the usual anxieties that often come with travel to a foreign land, away from home comforts.

Warnings of possible cyber-snooping by Chinese security services and team advisories that athletes leave electronic devices at home were alarming for a generation weaned on social media and constant connectivity with their worlds.

Also wearing were daily coronavirus tests that were mandatory — and invasive, taken with swabs to the back of the throat — for all Olympians, locked inside a tightly policed bubble of health restrictions to prevent infection spreads. The penalty for testing positive was possible quarantine and missed competition, a terrible blow for winter athletes who often toil outside of the limelight, except every four years at the Games.

“Who knows where those tests go, who handles the results,” Kenworthy said. “It’s definitely in the back of the mind.”

“And there’s like all the cybersecurity stuff. It is concerning,” he told The AP.

Often, athletes simply blanked when asked about human rights, saying they weren’t qualified to speak on the issue or were focused on competition, and hunkered down.

FILE- Sanne In ‘t Hof of the Netherlands competes in the women’s speedskating 5,000-meter race at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022, in Beijing.

On Twitter, Dutch speedskater Sanne in ‘t Hof blocked, unblocked and then blocked again a Uyghur living in the Netherlands who posted critical comments of Olympians in what he called “genocide” Games. Mirehmet Ablet shared a screengrab with The AP showing that the skater had barred him from accessing her account, where she tweeted that she “enjoyed every second!’ of her first Olympics. Ablet’s brother was arrested in 2017 in the Uyghur homeland of Xinjiang in far western China, and Ablet doesn’t know where he’s now held.

Other athletes also were effusive in praising their China experience. “Nothing short of amazing,” said U.S. speedskating bronze-medal winner Brittany Bowe.

FILE- Brittany Bowe of the United States reacts after her heat in the women’s speedskating 1,500-meter race at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Monday, Feb. 7, 2022, in Beijing.

Hoffman, who competed for the U.S. at the 2014 and 2018 Games, said internal politics within teams may also have dissuaded athletes from speaking critically. Coaches can bench athletes who bring unwanted attention and “there’s pressure from your teammates to not cause a distraction,” he said in a phone interview. Athletes with self-confidence dented by sub-par performances may also have felt that they’d lost any platform.

“There’s lots of really subtle pressure,” Hoffman said.

He expects some athletes won’t be critical once home, so as to not disrespect the cheerful and helpful Games workers.

But he’s hopeful others will speak up on their return and that “we do get a chorus.”

Feeling unmuzzled, some already are.

FILE- Nils van der Poel of Sweden reacts after breaking his own world record in the men’s speedskating 10,000-meter race at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, in Beijing.

Back in Sweden with his two gold medals in speedskating, Nils van der Poel told the Aftonbladet newspaper that although he had “a very nice experience behind the scenes,” hosting the Games in China was “terrible.” He drew parallels with the 1936 Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany and Russia hosting the Sochi Olympics before seizing control of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

“It is extremely irresponsible,” van der Poel said, “to give it to a country that violates human rights as clearly as the Chinese regime does.”

"What a pity it was not in my year": Adamari López's reaction to knowing that Luis Fonsi won 50 million dollars

The television presenter Adamari López He was speechless learning that her ex-husband Luis Fonsi won a fortune for a new musical project.

In the middle of the broadcast of the “Hoy día” program, viewers were amazed at the reaction of the Puerto Rican. And it is that the interpreter of ‘Despacito’ He earned $50 million from the sale of his music catalogue.

The drivers of the morning were talking about the news and at that moment Adamari could not hide his face of astonishment. In addition, the actress also took the opportunity to publicly congratulate the singer for this achievement.

“Congratulations, you really deserve it. He has worked his whole life for that and it seems very good to me, ”was the first thing Alaïa’s mother said before the Telemundo cameras.

Photo: Instagram/ adamarilopez

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Adamari López could not hide her astonishment when she learned of the fortune that Luis Fonsi earned

After congratulating the famous singer, the 50-year-old driver made a humorous comment that went viral on social networks.

“Oh, what a shame it wasn’t in my year! My goodness, ”said Adamari and that unleashed the laughter of his companions.

However, the moment did not stop there because the actress’s fans quickly uploaded that fragment to social networks and users also had fun.

Photo: Instagram/ adamarilopez

The video managed to position itself within many entertainment accounts, as well as in the profiles dedicated to Adamari. With that comment, the Puerto Rican managed to amuse thousands of users and some did not hesitate to leave her opinion on the matter.

“Adamari being Adamari”, “That phrase haha ​​came from her soul”, “I love her, she is very charismatic”, “That is called maturity, she has already overcome it” and “I loved her reaction”, were some of the comments.

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