Nati
Mountain Woman (1930) Sarllé

Nati is 93 years old and lives in Cerler, or Sarllé, as it is known there in Patués, a language spoken by between 1,000 and 2,500 people. Sarllé, located in the Benasque Valley at an altitude of 1,540 meters, is considered the highest village in the Aragonese Pyrenees. Nati is the oldest woman in the village and lives in the main house, where the key to the small church opposite has been kept for who knows how many hundreds of years. The priest goes every Saturday to fetch it so he can say Mass and returns it to her afterward. They hang it on a wall that has a slight hole from the erosion the key has made over time. Nati and her husband lived from livestock until they retired. This was before people came to the valley to ski. Nati explains that after tending the livestock, she still had to cook. Despite the village's steep climbs and descents, Nati likes to go out to the square and chat with the neighbors while sitting on a stone bench. When it's cold, she gets up late ("We'll go crazy if we go outside!") and sits in her designated kitchen chair with her blanket. She's a tough girl. She likes to have her say and is very direct. But she's also very sweet and funny, likes to dance the cucaracha... and has a very cynical sense of humor.