Um, so remember when we said that the oldest living man could be living Cape Town? Ja well … this tannie from Ventersdorp could very well be the oldest person in the world.

According to The Citizen, Martha Hester Sehao made history by still being alive after – wait for it – 121 years.

That means she was born in the 1800s, or 1897 to be precise.

Holy. HELL. How is that even possible?! Let’s get stuck in:

Martha can’t remember exactly where she was born, but her daughter, Miriam Sehawa, says her supercentenarian mother (someone who has reached the age of 110) grew up somewhere on a farm outside Ventersdorp.

Martha had seven children, four of whom are still alive. She has eight grandchildren, but, surprisingly, no great-grandchildren to her knowledge. Martha and Miriam have been living in Extension 8 in Ventersdorp for more than five years, but it is only now that she has captured the attention of the community.

Wow, after all this time? Ah well, better late than never.

A group of Ventersdorp residents who regularly clean the streets in the extensions noticed Sehao while cleaning outside her house one day. They decided to have a cake baked for her after they found out how old she was.

The baker who made the cake then notified a correspondent of the Potchefstroom Herald about Sehao, who they subsequently interviewed.

They took a pic of her ID document:

Y’all seeing this? One more time – Hesao’s birth-year is 1897. Staggering.

I wonder what she thinks of Facebook, the Kardashians, people using the word “e-meet”.

I hope for her sake she hasn’t been exposed to any of those horrors.

If it is confirmed that she really is 121, it could mean breaking a world record and dethroning 117-year-old Japanese woman Chiyo Miyako as the oldest person alive.

That could probably help Sehao out a lot:

Martha cannot walk anymore and, with only a pension as a source of income, there is no way she can afford a wheelchair. Miriam stays home to look after her mother, but this is not easy, as her body is frail and her bones brittle.

Despite her advanced age, the supercentenarian has got a lot of life left in her. Age is but a number, and all that.

Still, we’ll be rooting for you to break that record, Martha Hester Sehao.

[source:citizen]