Volunteers from Hainan Airlines pose with Zimbabwean medical staff during a break from the China-Africa Brightness charity project that treated more than 500 Zimbabwean cataract patients. Photos by Huang Yiming / China Daily

Volunteers from Hainan Airlines, who joined a charity project in Zimbabwe, transcend limitations of language and culture to reach out to those suffering from cataracts. Raymond Zhou and Huang Yiming report.

When Jenny Kangoma opened her eyes, she did not see the person she most wanted to see. Zhu Siquan, the ophthalmologist who extracted her cataract and placed a synthetic lens inside her eye, was already on the other side of the room, operating on the next patient.

The first clear image 76-year-old Kangoma saw in five years was that of a group of Chinese in full medical gear, yet they were not from the medical profession. They were volunteers from Hainan Airlines.

"She must have thought she had been transported to China," Zhu joked.

In the small operating room in Chitungwiza Central Hospital, some 40 km south of Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, doctors from Tongren Hospital of Beijing were giving free treatment to patients suffering from cataracts. From March 19 to 24, Zhu operated on 500 patients. But he was surrounded by a band of unsung heroes - nurses and volunteers.

Niu Yuanyu, a volunteer from Hainan Airlines, rinses the eye of a patient.

"I never thought Dr Zhu would be able to treat so many patients in one day," says Chen Gang, one of the volunteers from Hainan Airlines. "My grandpa had his cataract removed four or five years ago, and the operation took more than an hour."

That was because Chen's grandfather underwent conventional surgery while Dr Zhu uses a more advanced technique that takes just 2-3 minutes for each patient. Tongren Hospital also uses the most advanced lenses, the kind usually not covered by insurance even in Western countries.

Chen was first given tasks outside the operating room, but given his physique - he weighs 110 kg - he was transferred to the inner room where he helped patients onto the operating table. "Some of them are quite burly," he says.

"My girlfriend, who also works for the airline, is an enthusiast for charity projects. But there were only so many slots for this trip. I beat her to a place maybe because I can lift heavy stuff," he says.