I have slipped into this place and nothing seems strange any more so I have nothing to write about. I feel saturated by colour, the beautiful red brown earth, the magnificent flowering trees which stand in pools of shed blossom, the glorious colour sense of the people which makes every item of clothing vibrant and every washing line beautiful. I am just in it and I have nothing to say.


Things have been very hectic and we are stretched thin, going to more clinics and starting earlier in the mornings and my writing time is used more and more for working on cases. But last Monday afternoon there was a pause. We found ourselves waiting for the local organiser to arrive and bring us to the next home visit. Our host brought us chairs and we sat in the shade and at first my hurry washed over me splashing around in the stillness but we were there long enough for it to ebb completely away.


Our shady place was a yard enclosed on three sides by the house and on the fourth side by a mud and stick and stone walled shed and laced across from eave to eave with washing line. Waiting seems to make the colour more intense as if stillness gives it time to saturate the senses and the red earth brown, which is the colour of the ground and all the buildings, plays host to any other colour which might fall on it or hang from it lending intensity as contrast with the brown. So the washing lines are like abstract paintings and the blossom beneath the trees a blessing. On this day the blue of the sky and the green of the trees seen above the earth brown buildings have such a strong colour it cools just to look at it even while I feel the burn and sting of the sun on my foot which cannot fit with the rest of me in the shade.


Irene, the first Tanzanian homoeopath to qualify from the school in Kenya who is now working with HHA as homoeopath and translator, goes to the nearest fruit and veg stall and buys tiny mangos and we eat while we wait.


I haven't seen Ava for a while and when she arrives she brings me up to date on last month's home visits. Ava has seen a lot of homoeopathy over the years so she is not surprised by results and she can tell me without pause that a man who has been in bed for four years is up and walking around, but I am amazed.


Michael's story is that he took the news of his HIV status so badly four years ago that when he went home and lay down after hearing that he was positive “it was forever”. To make things worse for him he had had to wait four days to hear the results of the test and those four days of waiting and anticipating were nearly as bad for him as the results themselves. Now after a few years of homoeopathic treatment he is well and can speak (he lost his ability to speak on the day he lay down) but he is left with a trembling weakness and inability to stand on his own.


I had given him Gelsemium which is one of the remedies for ailments from anticipation and bad news and is also a great remedy for trembling weakness. Some times a remedy seems to be such a good fit you just know it is going to work so I had high hopes but I am still amazed all over again by what homoeopathy can do when I hear he is up and about.


Our last home visit of the day is to a lady who is lying on her mattress in her yard in great pain. She has not been able to work for a month and is depending on the kindness of her neighbours for food. Tomorrow I will hear how she is getting on with her remedy

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