Word: mejias
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Eladia Mejia is no little old lady in a rocking chair. She is stout, straight-backed, witty and indomitable, and her passion is teaching mestizo peasant children in the bandit-infested mountains of western Colombia. Since this requires schools, she builds them-partly with her own hands. Her record: 129 schools, plus four hospitals and a half-completed orphanage that will cover four city blocks when it is finished. "I am no architect," says she. "But I have the lines of four walls in my head, and with that I do a devil...
Despair. Last week, on the first vacation of her life. Teacher Mejia was visiting her country's capital, Bogotá, for the first time. Officials had called her for the compelling reason that Colombia is 43% illiterate and sadly in need of more schools, as well as of citizens who care. Would Dona Eladia tell the people how she does it? "To talk about oneself is naughty as well as unpedagogical," said she. Then she went on TV, and in a 15-minute interview with Colombia's school-building boss, did more for the cause than a dozen...