Centenary to young people: “Stop laziness and get to work” | Teletics

José Hipólito Ramiro Guadamuz was born on August 13, 1921. He is a centenarian of the Nicoya Peninsula, Guanacaste, one of the five blue zones in the world.

“I feel happy with life. At 100 years old, I am going to die without knowing laziness. I’m not lazy at all to do a job”, assures José Ramiro Guadamuz.

From the wisdom that he has acquired during his 100 years of life, he allows himself to share a message for young people: “Stop laziness and get to work.”

When I was 20 years old there were no roads and I could ride a horse up to three days in a row.

During his long life he has dedicated himself to agriculture and to working as a sabanero; he is still very active. He gets up at 5 am every day, prepares his coffee and rides to a farm seven kilometers from his house. On a day-to-day basis, he eats his favorite foods: rice, beans, milk and eggs.

“Too much has changed, before there were no bicycles and there was less television. There was no machinery, everything was done by machetes, there was no contamination and now everything is contaminated by insecticides; now everything is eaten by a contaminated person. People at 8 pm were in bed, that’s why they had up to 12 children or more, “she said, laughing.

Guadamuz has seven children, 16 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

At his age, this centenarian confesses that death is not something that worries him: “I never think about it, that it comes when it has to come.” Instead of talking about death, he prefers to focus on the things that give value to life, like work. “For me, work is like food, I no longer do what I used to do, but I am shadowing the boys.

Nicoya Peninsula: One of the five blue zones in the world


Jorge Vindas López, field researcher for the Blue Nicoya Peninsula Association, explained that the blue zones are those places where mortality is exceptionally low and there are a large number of long-lived people.

“Some possible factors are people’s physical activity. Before it was not so much by choice, but by necessity. You always had to move; the women had to go to the river, milk, work in the fields, while the men, with machete and ax in hand, dedicated themselves to the work of the fields. Their diet was zero processed, because almost everything they ate was produced by themselves. The family and social network also plays a very important role. Among these factors is also mentioned the spirituality and the generally strong faith that characterize these people, who also live very quiet lives and in very clean environments. The genetic factor must also be added to this list. According to the researchers, due to these factors, people live so many years,” López explained.

The centenary agrees with the last point: its genetics. “It is the blood of the Chorotega, one has Indian blood. In Nicoya, there were no white people, now the race has been changed because they are already mixed, we are like the gallo pinto,” Guadamuz opined.

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Centenary to young people: “Stop laziness and get to work” | Teletics