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It has a very cool headband. A cane. Two children. Four grandchildren. Six great-grandchildren. And 104 years and 11 months. Her name is Elisa Hidalgo González , and little did "La Carioca" - as she likes to say - imagine that she was going to ride this Tuesday.

Because there she was, all pretty, well combed, after weeks of just watching astronauts bring her food and prepare her bed, receiving a warm applause ... Exactly why? "Nah, I think that surely you have not heard about this from the Covid ...", says his grandson Braulio. "You must have heard something, but ..."

It had to be celebrated, however: Elisa, who lived through the Civil War first, after raising a family, also working the field all her life, had just defeated the coronavirus by KO. Looking at 105 years, there is nothing. And without disheveled. "He has had few symptoms, some fever, a little distemper, tiredness ... Nothing, he has been very well," says his grandson.

Braulio also has his story: intensivist doctor, he is head of the ICU of the Hospital de Bierzo. Indeed: where Elisa would have gone to find her bones if it were not for the fact that the woman, accustomed to planting potatoes and feeding pigs throughout her life, ate the happy coronavirus in no time. A little sheet metal and paint, and go ahead.

She was a little annoyed at not being able to go for a walk, with what she likes

Braulio, Elisa's grandson

"It was March 31 when they detected that there were several cases, they did the PCR on everyone and she tested positive," her grandson told EL MUNDO by phone. " The center, supported by the Hospital del Bierzo, did very well: it quickly isolated them and was guided by the doctors." Of the 131 inmates at La Rosaleda - Las Encinas, in Ponferrada, only around twenty positives have been registered, with "several deaths, the number of which I cannot specify," his manager told this newspaper.

Elisa did not even require treatment. "Nothing, nothing," says Braulio Álvarez, "basic care and that's it." Between whistles, flutes and confinements, the family has not seen her for a month, but she knows of her adventures: "I think she was a little annoyed at not being able to go for a walk, with what she likes , " says Braulio. "The caregivers did take her out a little down the hall, though."

It is not known if Elisa knows very well that her Bercian nature has calmly bowed to the pandemic - "I told them to tell her it was a flu, that they did not mess it up much" - but that our protagonist did, "after not doing sports in his life, but he did a lot of physical work in the garden, now he goes to the gym a lot, " explains his grandson.

"He likes to do the horse"

There she loves to do "the horse, which I do not know very well what she refers to, the same as the parallel ones", speculates Braulio, who certifies: "She is strong. She, having, having, has had nothing but a fall, and Well, now you have to see and hear, that your sight and hearing already have it like this, like this. "

Elisa was born, in the hamlet of Rodanillo (Bembibre, León), in May 1915, her grandson was not clarified if on the 26th or 28th. Her father, José María, was the town's teacher : both she and her Dosinda brothers, Asunción, Josefina, Roberto and another name that Braulio cannot recall, learn to read and write, a luxury in agriculture at the time. The woman comes to the Civil War married, or so Braulio supposes, "because my mother was born in 1938."

Established in Viñales, a small town of 200 inhabitants in El Bierzo, Elisa and her husband, Daniel, are dedicated "to agriculture and livestock, what was then in the field," says his grandson. "They got something out of the wine, milk and eggs, but above all it was pure autarky. They grew to eat. They had cows, chickens, rabbits, pigs." They have two children, Daniel dies in the early 80s, Elisa gets the so-called agrarian retirement, she continues with the chickens and the garden until the vital autumn turns to winter.

"She is a very strong, affable, calm woman, always well-intentioned," says Braulio, pure grandson love. " Always remember things on the positive side , remember the good things, that can tell you a lot about her."

Until she was 94 years old, she lived alone, in the family home, in Viñales, "with some help like shopping for her." Longeva like several of her sisters, who tread the 90-year-old mark, reaches 100 without stepping on a residence, and the last four are already taken care of . In these the Covid-19 appears, greets her and she sucks him off as she prepares, with "very few moments of mental disconnection", to celebrate her first 105 years. "And let's see how we celebrate it", ends his grandson Braulio.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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