Every Tuesday, 85-year-old Philipa Muñoz Montiel pulls herself out of bed at 4am. Before the sun rises, she sets arthritic hands to the day’s labor: preparing dozens of corn tortillas and tamales with a pinch of wood ash and a dash of cal, calcium-rich limestone, from the recipe her mother taught her so many years ago. When it’s time, she wraps the baked corn goods in waxy, green banana leaves, dons a pair of ancient, road-worn loafers, and sets off to town, the same as she’s done for over 40 years.
If you visit Hojancha, you’re bound to see Philipa trudging the roadside, weighed down with leaf-wrapped parcel balanced expertly on her head. The long march to and from the village center, two miles of sharply undulating hills under the beating sun, would be brutal for someone a quarter of her age. But as she’s too poor to own a car, Philipa must make the journey multiple times a week, to sell her wares or to buy ingredients from the market.
It’s a hard, poor life, and at almost 90 years old, it might even be considered tragic — if it were not for one simple truth. Philipa loves what she does. When she discusses her clients, many of whom have eaten her tortillas since infancy, a radiant smile illuminates her sun-browned face. She loves them, and they love her. They eagerly await her arrival, and linger in friendly conversation far longer than it takes to exchange coins for tortillas. Philipa’s a town fixture, a symbol of Hojanchans’ close-knit community, loyalty and enduring respect for tradition. For Philipa, her devoted clientele gives her a sense of purpose and satisfaction that sustains her to meet the challenge of every new day.
Philipa was born to a poor Chorotega mother, made even more destitute by the loss of her husband when Philipa was just a girl. Because the school was two towns away, and no one cared about educating girls, Philipa stayed home to help her mother cook, clean and care for the younger children. When we asked if she enjoyed her childhood, she laughed her assent — no one had asked her that question in years. She then launched into a story in rapid-fire, staccato Spanish: She used to climb trees, she loved to climb high, and she fell several times, breaking her arms, which is why they’re deformed and bent like this, did we see? As she lifted her arms in two arcs above her head like a ballerina, the same way she carries the tortillas, I realized she was physically incapable of straightening them any further.
There were other mishaps and misfortunes over the course of Philipa’s long life. A jealous husband, to whom she bore 12 children (only nine of whom survived adolescence), cut her legs with a machete after seeing Philipa talking to another man. That same husband died over 20 years ago, leaving Philipa widowed like her mother, to care and provide for herself. The daughter who lives with Philipa is an alcoholic, so instead of being able to care for her aging mother it’s more often than not the other way around. Grandchildren, nieces and nephews do stop by, though, and Philipa treasures their visits.
But Philipa’s beloved extended family is made up of the people who so eagerly buy her baked goods, the tortillas and tamales she makes the old-fashioned way. And at the age that sees close to a quarter of Americans in nursing homes, finishing the final chapters in their lives, Philipa doesn’t envision quitting work anytime soon. When we ask her if she would like to, she hardly takes the time to consider it. There are mouths to feed, and electricity bills to pay, she answers simply. Gracias a Dios — thanks to God — she still has the energy to get the job done. And by the way, she asks as we're leaving, "How do you like your tamales?" She’d love to stop by tomorrow to sell us some.
