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Julia Flores Colque, affectionately known as Mama Julia, is an almost 118-years old lucid Bolivian woman, who might hold the world's oldest living person record. She was born on October 26, 1900, in a mining camp in the Bolivian Andes, according to her national identity card.
She is now 117 and 10 months and is the oldest person in Bolivia, and perhaps the oldest person in the world. She has been witness to several historic events, revolutions in her home Bolivia, both World Wars, and the transformation of her hometown Sacaba from three thousand people to a city of over 175,000.
The previous holder of the world's oldest living person record was a 117-year-old woman, who was born on Aug. 4, 1900, and passed away earlier in 2018, which would leave Mama Julia as the world's oldest living person.
She still sings in her mother tongue Quechua and plays the Charango, a very traditional Andean small guitar, lives in an adobe house with her 65-year-old grandniece and her dogs, cats and a rooster.
Even though birth certificates didn't exist in Bolivia until 1940, and births were registered with baptism certificates which were provided by the Catholic Church, her national identity card has been certified by the Bolivian government.
The Sacaba mayor's office has contributed to Flores Colque's living conditions, by financing the remodeling of her house. The mayor has called her a city's living heritage. A few years ago, after a fall that hurt her back, doctors said she wouldn't be able to walk again but she proved them wrong.
A Guinness World Record spokeswoman said that she is not aware of any application to contest the oldest person record. Mama Julia is not preoccupied with any record saying she has not even heard about the book.
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