Sumintra is 107

“I am active. I do not like to sit down and do nothing,” Dookoo told Newsday as she sat on a chair.

Dookoo said she is a member of the Faith Revival Church of San Fernando and never misses Sunday service. When she was younger, she followed a strict routine of working all day and going to sleep early and waking up early. “It was house work and then to the garden,” Dookoo said.

She got married at age 13.

Dookoo’s daughter Janie Carrera, 72, attested to Dookoo’s claims saying that as long as she (Carrera) knew herself, “ma has always been working...if not in the house, in the garden.” “When she was in her nineties, I would be looking for her in the house but she would be in the dasheen patch at the back of the house cleaning,” Carrera said, adding that her mother would be totally absorbed in her work throughout the day. Her mother’s philosophy is, ‘daytime make for work, night-time for rest.’ Carrera said the family never visits the market as everything they need is planted in the kitchen garden. Dookoo lived most of her life in Debe but was taken to the home of her daughter in Monty Trace, Marabella when she turned 100.

Speaking about her mother’s life, Carrera said Dookoo was married to Changoor Taju. “I remember her telling me how her husband (Taju) contracted typhoid fever and was hospitalized for six months,” Carrera said, adding that her mother was pregnant at the time and she went to sign up in Tate and Lyle, to cut sugarcane. Tate and Lyle was replaced by Caroni 1975 Ltd, which is now defunct.

Dookoo worked everyday until right up to labour pains. Soon after giving birth, Dookoo was back in the fields working in order to maintain her sick husband and newborn. “I believe it was at these times that my mother learnt never to sit idly by as we never know when hard times will come up,” Carrera said.

Carrera says she puts her mother first on her daily agenda.

“I would first look after her before I do anything for myself,” she said, adding that she admires her mother for her ability to talk and walk at age 107. “Everyday I have with her is a blessing,” Carrera said. Dookoo is a mother of seven, four of whom have since died.

Three daughters are still alive.

Dookoo is a grandmother of 42, great grandmother of 25 and has 18 great great grandchildren.