Every week has been different here. I turned up for work this morning at the Mkombozi clinic where we would normally see up to 20 kids between the ages of 10 and 13 to find that school is over and no-one there.

This is usually a tough gig, hard to crack the individual cases as well as emotionally wearing; seeing kids without a parent or grandparent or older brother or sister who knows them means it is difficult to get good information and so it is difficult to prescribe. On top of which they all seem to have the same symptoms and some weeks I could swear someone is standing outside the door and briefing them before they come in “this week it's head and abdomen – tell the mzungu you have a pain in your head and abdomen”. So you end up seeing child after child, all more or less the same size and age in the same uniform and with the same symptoms as the child before and none of them very talkative.

Because they are all HIV it is worth our best shot so we do the best we can to decipher the puzzle of each one. It is very easy to remember that Pendo was one of these kids a year ago. They are all more or less healthy – we just need to keep them that way. For people with HIV everything has to be treated; every cough or cold or grief or shock. Having a weakened immune system leaves you vulnerable to small knocks.

But the day turned into a different day today and we struggled back into town through the slidey mud, carrying the big wooden remedy kit between us, to organise a painter to paint a sign for the new centre. Talking to Roger on the way I heard how he would love to go to Kenya to study homoeopathy in the school there and from having worked with him over these past few months I can see that he would make a great and compassionate homoeopath.

The other thing that has coloured this week differently is that there have been attacks from so called skeptics, nasty stuff on the HHA website and on facebook. It is difficult to know how to react to them because they are so far off the mark it is as though they are saying cats while we are saying oranges.

It is a shame because skepticism and homoeopathy go hand in hand in a way. It is only the reaction of the patient to the remedy that proves whether it is the right remedy or not and as you listen to the patient's report only an open and questioning mind will get you accurate information and prevent you jumping to soft conclusions.

As a skeptic I had an interesting week last week – different again – my job was to go on the round with the doctor in the hospital checking on the homoeopathy patients. It was a real eye opener to see people who had had homoeopathy side by side with people who had not; it was so clear that the homoeopathy patients were consistently doing better and recovering faster. I just wish that they could all have homoeopethy.