Bread is good for you! Your bathroom scales might disagree but as there is a 103-year-old baker in Guájar Faragüit, we can say that this pretty much clinches it.

Yes, Josefa Mancilla Mendoza, was born in Los Guájares longer ago than the average living memory can recall – it was a Monday, the 5th of December 1921. OK she’s still not quite there for her 103rd but let’s hope we’ve haven’t jinxed her *Gulp!*

As was the custom, 6-year-old Josefa would join the rest of the family working the land and looking after the goats with her father and since then she hasn’t stopped, which is probably another recipe for a long life. There were also all the domestic choirs expected from a female, with everything from sowing to cooking.

It was a hard time in rural Spain (basically most of the country) in the 1930, so children didn’t have much of a childhood as they were expected to stop being an extra mouth to feed and be an extra pair of hands to put food on the table.

Anyway, on the doorstep of reaching her 30s, she married her cousin and set up a tavern with her new husband. He spent most of the time working the land, whilst she spent of hers dispensing wine and Spanish schnapps (aguadiente) over the bar as well as wholesome food.

In 1968 Josefa & Rafael took over the family bakery (panadería) and their son went from door to door in Guájar Faragüit and Guájar Fondón with a mule selling bread etc. Rafael also had a side line in selling sewing machines and TVs. In 1933 he bought a camera, second hand, off a foreigner for five duros, which was quite an outlay.

Un duro was five pesetas. Take into account that when we swapped over to euros, one euro was 166.38 pesetas so we’re talking about a duro being about 8 euro cents… In 1929 you would pay 60 pesetas (12 duros) for a gramaphone in Madrid. My Maths sucks so correct me if I’m wrong.

Josefa retired from working at the bakery in 1997 and it was only a couple of years ago that Rafael passed away – in all that time, she had never been sick… and they had never gone on a honeymoon trip. She did go Granada when she was 20 but that was enough globe trotting for Josefa.

Going to Granada from Los Guájares was no easy endeavour, either; she had accompanied her parents, on two mules to Dúrcal where they left their animals at an inn. From there, they took the tram from Dúrcal to the Granada, which was probably like taking the space shuttle to the International Space Station for Josefa.

There weren’t any cars in Los Guájares in her childhood, until the new village teacher turned up in one (flash git!). After all, there was no running water in the houses until the 70s and the main road was just a dirt track.

For a full account of her life, check out the article in Ideal by Rafael Vilches which we used as a source. Rafael Vilches does some excellent articles on the villages of rural Granada and their history.

(News: Los Guajares, Temple/Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)

Keywords, Guájar Fondón, Guájar Faragüit, Panadería, Bakery, Dúrcal Tram, Mule, Inn, Pesetas, Duros