Astrid Diepes
On a grey November morning in picturesque Pallanza at the Lake Maggiore in Italy, Emma Morano is sitting on her bed in her two-room apartment, wrapped in her warm red shawl. On November 29th she celebrates her 117th birthday.
Also present are Morano's niece Antonietta, her grandniece Renata, her Columbian caregiver Mili (she has had 24-hour care for the past two years now she has had a caregiver with her 24 hours a day. ), and a group of journalists.
The wall beside her bed carries photos of her parents and other family members. One picture, of a brother who died in an accident aged 31, is adorned with three edelweiss.
Morano is alert and smiles as she looks through our birthday gifts: She kisses the rosary and the picture of the Saint Mary. The votive candle of the Madonna del Sangue di Ré is placed on the chest of drawers beside her bed.
Morano has been the oldest person ever born in Italy since August 2015, and the oldest person in the world since May 12th, 2016, when her predecessor Susannah Mushatt Jones died.
Emma was born in Civiasco, Vercelli, Italy in 1899. She was the first of eight children. As a teenager, she loved waltz and tango. She still adores music. When her carer Mili takes her smartphone out and plays Morano's favourite song from her youth, Parlami d'Amore Mariù (in English: Tell me about love, Mariù) - Morano sings along, smiling mischievously and beaming with satisfaction.
During the first World War, Morano's fiancé was called to the front and she never saw him again. She believed he had been killed in the war. Some years ago a journalist discovered that actually the young man returned from the war but was unable to find Emma Morano, who had moved.
When she did marry it was to a man who turned out to be a violent husband. In 1938 Morano separated from him and decided to never commit herself to anyone again.
In those days in Italy a divorce wasn't legally possible and even a separation was a scandal. But Emma Morano is proud to look back on a life as an independent woman. She worked, first in a jute factory, later in the kitchen of the Collegio Santa Maria.
On March 10th, 1946, the day Italian women first got the chance to vote, Morano was already 46 years old. We ask her if she still votes today and if she's interested in politics. No, she doesn't vote anymore.
Morano's niece, 75-year-old Antonietta, visits regularly. She is the daughter of Emma's sister Angela who died aged 102. In the kitchen, Antonietta is speaking on the phone with her aunt's doctor, Dr Bava.
Morano and her doctor have a close bond. When he enters the apartment Morano asks: "Who is it?" "Berlusconi!" he replies. (During Berlusconi's mandate the introduction of the euro Morano's pension almost halved).
Dr Bava believes Morano's love of life and positive thinking are major factors in her extraordinarily long life. Another decisive factor is her DNA, he says. As for her diet, well, her long life seems to be more in spite of than because of it.
Morano used to eat 500 grams of Gianduiotti (chocolates made with the hazelnuts from her home region Piedmont) every week , and swill whole glasses of honey. She loves biscuits , too. Mili soaks them in water to make them easier to digest.
Every day, Morano eats two raw eggs and has raw meat in broth. She drinks a litre of mineral water a day and eats a piece of banana every afternoon. She does not like tea or wine.
Morano's favourite TV programmes are Murder, She Wrote and Kommissar Rex, an Austrian police procedural drama with the main character Rex, a German Shepherd police dog.
Morano's lifetime to date has spanned three centuries. Born in the Kingdom of Italy under Umberto I, she has seen two world wars, the coming and going of fascism and 11 popes. She prays a lot, she tells us, for her siblings and for her only child Angelo, who died when he was only a few months old.
She mainly addresses the Madonna, Sant'Antonio, San Giuliano and San Giulio, after whom the only island in the nearby Lake Orta is named: "I'm always praying: San Giulio and San Giuliano, protect me from the wolves, the wild beasts, the snakes and from mean people. I ask Sant'Antonio to please protect me from all dangers."
In Piedmont, especially in summer, to be bitten by vipers is not uncommon; in the valley Val Grande there are still wolves.
The young Morano left her native village Civiasco with her family 100 years ago, when her father found work in one of the valleys surrounding Lake Maggiore. The small mountain village , about 40km from Pallanza, is both beautiful and secluded, and now has just 250 inhabitants. Many of the friendly yellow and orange houses are painted with frescos of the Madonna; the dwelling Morano was born in no longer exists.
Her current home, the town of Pallanza, is proud of its most famous citizen and has dedicated a musical to her. It will be performed on Morano's birthday in a new local theatre.
Though Morano has lived in Pallanza for 30 years, many of the townspeople have never seen her and are familiar with her only through television. She has not left her second-story-apartment beside the church San Leonardo for 15 years. Agostino, a painter, has been her next-door neighbour since the 1980s. "I've never seen her, but I know from her niece Rosi that she's doing fine."
"I'm doing really fine," she confirms, "but my legs are weak."