HEALTHY AT 100 (7 page)

I often reflected on the needs that the old and the young have for each other as I sat on a bench outside the stucco house with Angel Modesto. His great-grandson, Luis Fernando, not yet two, usually was at his side. They seemed sewn from the same bolt of cloth. They walked at the same pace, with the gait of kinship. They had time and love and attention for each other. For long stretches, I would watch the tireless Luis Fernando romping and running and laughing, testing his legs and his arms and his place in the world, and daily growing more secure in the knowledge that the loving eyes of his great-grandfather countenanced with enormous approbation his every move. Each was aware of the other and shared their love with an unaffected ease. I felt having his great-grandfather in his life was as important for Luis Fernando’s sense of well-being, now and in his future, as his having nursed from his mother’s breast.
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Like the Abkhasians, the Vilcabambans dwell in a society that is suffused with respect for the elderly. No elder ever fears being abandoned or isolated. In a dramatic contrast with modern American culture, old people are loved simply for who they are, regardless of whether they have any wealth. Their wisdom is admired, their seniority respected. The younger people flock to be around them, enjoying their company and appreciating the opportunity to learn from them. Older people are not treated with any condescension or false deference. The respect of the younger people for the elders is genuine and potent. The elders are fully present, involved, and responsive. Halsell said she never saw a single case of senility.
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Halsell knew American culture inside and out. She knew that in a youth-obsessed culture, the elderly are often seen as obsolete, as standing in the way of “progress.” With profound empathy for those who are left out, she was poignantly aware of the differences in how those who are most vulnerable, including the very young and the very old, were treated in Vilcabamba as compared to the United States:

Living among these people, I learned that it isn’t a bank account that can give an old person a sense of security so much as the assurance
that he or she never will live alone, nor die alone. Regardless of his age in the Sacred Valley the
viejo
never fears being abandoned or being put away in an institution, unwanted, neglected, left to wither and die.…In the U.S. a person can work hard all of his or her life, only to reach the heap of obsolescence. The reality is that the old in the U.S. have every right to feel depressed. A
viejo
will never know that kind of desolation, that kind of abandonment and depression.
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One visiting doctor who had come to study the health of the elderly in Vilcabamba was aware that depression is extremely common among the aged in the United States. He asked a very old man named Ramon, “Are you often depressed?”

Ramon replied, quite simply, “Only if I have reason to be.”

The doctor asked for a recent example of a time the elder had been depressed, but Ramon could not think of one. The last time, he said, was many years ago, when his house had burned down. “Then, I was depressed,” he said. “But with the help of others I built it back again and felt happy to be alive.”
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In the modern world, in contrast, when people are depressed, for whatever reason, they’re often given Prozac or other antidepressant drugs. I know, of course, that these drugs have helped some people to get through very difficult times. But when someone has experienced a disheartening loss or defeat, how much better it would be to have a community of support and love in which to find our healing rather than having to rely only on a drug.

One of the great strengths of both the Abkhasian and Vilcabam-ban cultures lies in how deeply people are in touch with one another. Not only do they plant and harvest and eat together, but people share with their neighbors the experiences of birth and bereavement, of children marrying and parents dying. In this way, the community is able to take part together in the most joyous and most frightening moments of life. No one has to face them alone.

It is inspiring to know that this way of living is possible, but I do not want to be overly sentimental about life in these regions. It’s true that there is no record of there having ever been a suicide in Vilcabamba.
It’s true that none of the old people wear glasses or hearing aids, and that few of them, even at the most advanced ages, need a cane or crutch to help them walk. But the people in what is called the Sacred Valley certainly have their share of suffering. The poverty is serious, and infant mortality is high by our standards. There are accidents and deaths in Vilcabamba, there are broken marriages and disappointments.

And yet somehow the people have not armored themselves against the pain, and have not withdrawn from one another into shells. If they are hurt, they cry; when a loved one dies, they grieve. The very act of grieving is considered part of life, part of learning and loving. Then they usually go on, their spirits connected to each other, their smiles all the deeper for all they have known and shared.

“What pleases me most about the Vilcabambans,” Grace Halsell wrote, “is that they spend a lot of their time laughing.”
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There is much we can learn from the Vilcabambans, and I admire their ability to be so joyful with so few possessions, but I don’t believe there is anything ennobling about poverty. In the modern world, a lack of money prevents many from meeting their most basic human needs and reduces them to a squalid existence. An empty purse can be heavy baggage to carry through life. It’s crucial that we work to abolish poverty so that every human being has food, clothing, housing, healthcare, education, employment, and a lifetime of peace.

At the same time, I think it’s a shame that we in the modern world have made the acquisition of money so important that we often define ourselves and our value by how much we can spend. We’ve made money into the measure of our success. A satirical poet once said that the two most beautiful words in the English language are “check enclosed.”

The Reverend Dale Turner tells of a mystic from India who was introduced to New York City. His guide took him to the Times Square subway station at the peak of morning rush hour. The visitor
was appalled at what he saw—people with briefcases pushing hard and driving madly. Not understanding what was causing people to behave so frantically, he asked, “Is there a wolf behind them?” “No,” said the guide, “there’s a dollar in front of them.”
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A life devoted to the acquisition of wealth is useless unless we know how to turn it into joy. This is an art that requires wisdom and unselfishness, qualities the Vilcabambans, who have little in material possessions, seem to have in abundance. Perhaps they can remind us that our fulfillment does not lie in clamoring for ever more of life’s goods. Perhaps they can help us recall the wisdom of simplicity, the importance of our relationships with one another, and help us appreciate the teachings of Gandhi, who urged us to “live simply so others may simply live.”

As difficult as it may be for many of us in the modern world to accept, there may actually be some advantages to not having a surfeit of material things in your life. Grace Halsell noted,

The
viejos
of Vilcabamba have never been handicapped by the wheel as a mode of transport. They own no cars or bicycles. Nor do they have horses or burros to move them over the rugged landscape of the Sacred Valley. They simply walk. They walk to work and they walk home from work. That necessity enriches and strengthens them.
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She contrasted this with sedentary Americans who say “Let’s take a walk” as if it were a challenge, a novelty, a course for which they deserve some credit. In the modern world, we drive our cars everywhere. We drive to a drive-in cleaner, a drive-in bank, the drive-in window at a fast-food restaurant. To some of us, getting exercise means driving to a golf course and then riding around in an electric cart.

In Vilcabamba, as in Abkhasia, even the oldest people are very active. There is always physical work to do in the household or garden, and both males and females are involved in it all from earliest childhood until their final days on earth. They have no need of exercise equipment, for simply traversing the hilly terrain during each day’s
activities sustains a high degree of cardiovascular fitness as well as general muscular tone.
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Perhaps as a result of the great amount of walking and other exercise, even the oldest Vilcabambans have extremely healthy bones. Unlike elders in the industrialized world, they almost never fall and break an arm, leg, or hip. Even at the most advanced ages, they rarely limp or become disabled.

In the modern world, when people are feeling down they are often told to “take it easy,” to simply lie in bed and relax. In both Vilcabamba and Abkhasia, however, people experiencing “the blues” typically respond by becoming active and involved with others. Rather than withdrawing and becoming sedentary, they will walk great distances for the joy of visiting one another. So great is the recognition of the healing power of walking to visit a friend that there is a saying in Vilcabamba that each of us has two “doctors”—the left leg and the right leg.

What kinds of foods, you may wonder, make up the Vilcabamban diet?

They have nothing remotely comparable to food stores or markets as we know them, with selections of packaged goods. There are no canned foods in their homes, and they never open a box of breakfast cereal, pancake mix, or crackers. For the vast majority of their lives, the old people in Vilcabamba have had no experience of processed food. They have known nothing of the artificial preservatives and other chemical additives that are found in so many modern foods.

Vegetables are picked fresh from the gardens, with their full nutritional value intact. Fruits are eaten the same day they are plucked, often on the spot. The Vilcabamban diet is almost entirely vegetarian, made up primarily of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, seeds, beans, and nuts. Once in a while they will consume milk or eggs, but these are usually quite scarce. The
viejos
eat almost no meat, and never any butter. Their overall diet is very low (by contemporary
American standards) in calories. There are no overweight people in Vilcabamba.

Their protein comes from vegetables, whole grains, and a variety of beans. Their carbohydrates are always unrefined and come primarily from whole-grain cereals such as corn, quinoa, wheat, and barley, and from tubers including potatoes, yucca, and sweet potatoes. Their fat comes mostly from avocados, seeds, and nuts.

The diets of the Vilcabambans are remarkably similar to the diets of the Abkhasians. In the Vilcabamban diet as in the traditional Abkhasian diet, protein and fat are almost entirely of vegetable origin. The diets of both regions are low in calories. And both cultures depend almost entirely on natural foods rather than processed and manufactured ones.

Desserts as we know them in the modern world do not exist in Vilcabamba. When the
viejos
in Vilcabamba want a sweet taste, they eat fresh fruit such as figs, pineapples, watermelons, oranges, bananas,
naranjillas
(a type of small orange), papayas, or mangos. Fruits of all kinds are plentiful year-round. When Vilcabambans go visiting their neighbors, they often bring fresh fruit as a present.

Coming from the United States, Grace Halsell was used to a far more complex and varied diet. But she noticed something interesting:

In Vilcabamba…my mind never dwelled on food. I wasn’t frustrated, and didn’t yearn for chocolate. It may be that [the unavailability of sugary and processed foods] had disciplined my appetite. But I suspected other reasons for this absence of the usual cravings. The stress was missing. Traffic never jangled my nerves, and decisions about food were simply unnecessary. No compulsions were generated by the bombardment of television commercials exhorting me to bite into a particular brand of potato chips.…
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Walking up and down mountains, the
viejos
and I never stopped to talk about food. Our minds were occupied with love stories or other thoughts more interesting than food. And when we sat down to eat, everyone was courteous, and still more interested
in talking than eating. I never saw anyone greedy for food, or afraid he would not get his share. I never saw any
viejo
overeat. I saw families with one plate of maize to share who were less greedy than a group of gringos eating a five-course meal. I ate less because they were a good influence.
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It’s hard not to see the contrast with the modern industrialized world. If you live in the modern West today, you live in a very different food environment than do the Vilcabambans. Most likely, you are surrounded by fast-food chain restaurants and are continually exposed to ads for junk foods. In many neighborhoods, it’s easier to find a Snickers bar, a Big Mac, or a Coke than it is to find an apple.

If you go to a doctor in the United States for health tips, you may find in the waiting room a glossy 243-page magazine titled
Family Doctor: Your Essential Guide to Health and Wellbeing.
Published by the American Academy of Family Physicians and sent free to the offices of all fifty thousand family doctors in the United States in 2004, it’s full of glossy full-page color ads for McDonald’s, Dr Pepper, chocolate pudding, and Oreo cookies.

Meanwhile, kids in U.S. schools are learning arithmetic by counting M&M’s, using lesson plans supplied by candy companies. When they walk though the hallways of their high schools, they may see a series of brightly colored mini-billboards, cheerfully telling them that “M&M’s are better than straight A’s” and instructing them to “satisfy your hunger for higher education with a Snickers.”