100 Birthday Candles for Oliva
Come Wednesday, doña Oliva Vargas, will prove that her formula for living in peace, tranquility and fervor for life was fruitful for her reaching her centenary birthday.

Vargas who lives in a retirement home for the ages said God gave her lots of life notwithstanding the difficulties.

Vargas told the daily Spanish language newspaper Al Día that the "old days" were much nicer, the days when there were no cars in the streets, no television and the young were much more polite and didn't get involved in drugs.

The woman never married. She said "men have always been the same", but never gave an explanation of what she meant. She told Sylvia Alvarado Marenco, the Al Día reporter, that just not long ago one of the "old" men in the home offered to marry her. "What for? I am to old for that", was her answer.

Oliva never knew her mother, being raised by her aunt following her mothers death following birth. She survived her father and seven brothers and sisters.

On Wednesday, Oliva will be blowing out her 100 birthday candles.

"If I were to be born again, I would come back to the same. I would change nothing", the woman said.