The woman who read the back like braille

Robleda. A small village.

They took me to see a bone healer. She had learned her craft setting the bones of goats.

While I was waiting for my turn, I felt myself fading. I grabbed onto my friend Diego. Then, black out.

I was floating. Everything dark. Very pleasant. There was a kind of light. I was ascending.

"It's not your time."

And right at the moment I felt that, I came back. The woman from Robleda was throwing a bucket of water in my face to wake me up.

She had me come inside. Gave me goat milk with lemon. And she tended to me.

When my turn came, she sat me in a chair. Her fingers began to move across my back. They were capable of reading through the different layers of the body.

She said: "This boy has had a lot of pain, but he's fine now."

Then she had me lean forward and followed me vertebra by vertebra with expert hands. It was spectacular.

What struck me most: the elderly people in the village had better posture than anyone I had ever seen in the city.

Entire generations had passed through those hands.

Although when I walked out the first thing I did was throw up the goat milk with lemon.

There is a knowledge in the hands that no degree can give.