Balekile Khumalo, who maintains she is about 111 or 112 years old, has strong thoughts on how people should behave.
For South Africa to flourish, "people need to pray more, have good teachers, good health care, and help each other. And the politicians must be less corrupt," she says.
Khumalo's neat home lies on the slopes of Spioenkop mountain, above the village of Hambrook, midway between Bergville and Ladysmith.
Khumalo has not seen big changes in her long lifetime, and she still turned out at the recent election poll to make her mark for the future.
She might have hidden in the bushes on her parents' instruction at the time of the Battle of Spioenkop, but she cannot recall any of the faction fighting which fanned many parts of KwaZulu-Natal in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Her memories are more gentle ones: of her husband, Bukwana, dressed in a khaki tunic (possibly a British soldier's uniform) and carrying a bag with a red cross on it when they walked into Bergville.
She tells of working in the fields for a farmer, earning a small sum of money for her efforts. Now she works her own fields, bending and stooping like a young woman as she moves amid her maize.
A lemon tree flourishes in her garden, and she tells us she used to supply the nearby Three Tree Lodge with lemons for home-made lemonade.
In her home hangs a poster of a young Brooke Shields. "She is beautiful," says Khumalo, touching the poster. "She was given to me by a madam I used to work for in Bergville. I hear she is a film star."
The old lady has never been to a cinema, and does not have a television set. Not that she perceives this as a loss.
"It gives me more time to pray. People should pray more and we would have a better country."
Though she does not hunger after newfangled devices, Khumalo does dream of owning a solar panel, so that she can have hot water - and maybe a TV set.
"Then I can keep up with affairs. I do not know what is going on, and I want to know more about what is happening far away from where I live."
Obviously her mind is still sharp and inquiring.
In Durban, Violet Ryan, 95, who also queued at the polls, has access to all the things Khumalo does not.
She also has strong thoughts, though hers pertain mostly to the environment, and has seen profound differences in her lifetime.
She does not watch a great deal of television, and her eyes are not up to reading for long periods. Often she sits, just thinking, in the dark.
"I am saving energy," she says. "People waste so much. How will the world cope if we all do that? I'm trying to play a small part, even though it will probably make no difference.
"But if we were all more careful with our water and did not cut down so many trees, imagine how wonderful South Africa could be."