Africa is waiting; something is about to happen, or perhaps it has always been happening in an infinite present, the air still, the horizon wide. There, the coordinates of space and time are erased to construct a different dimension, ancient and powerful, moving in circular waves, uniting the blue of the sky with the yellow of an endless earth.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to collaborate in Botswana with the Elena Barraquer Foundation and spend time with a team of medical professionals who, with no reward other than doing their job well, restored sight to 322 people who had been living in the shadows.

Order and meticulous coordination reigned, spontaneously established among everyone. The patients (from the Latin patiens: to suffer or endure) maintained a mineral serenity, the stoic dignity of the forgotten. The surgeons’ hands moved as if dancing, with the calm precision of craftsmen and sages.

I was there, but at the same time I wasn’t; I was just another cog in that perfect machine. In the background, the soundtrack of my life played, the music that Dr Elena Barraquer used to warm up the intimidating cold of an operating theatre. I watched the person I used to be pass by, already forgotten, to the rhythm of Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Nina Simone and Cat Stevens. The young people on the team were barely familiar with those chords from the last century. The hours passed as if they were years, the years stretched out to form decades in very brief flashes. Everything falls into place when time disappears.

When it was over, there were few words, many smiles to heal the fatigue, a contained emotion. True heroism and sincere generosity are often accompanied by silence, a certain modesty that dispenses with overly effusive gestures.

I return with the feeling that I never left. Something I cannot name remained there, waiting.

Eva Serrano – Field volunteer