KENYA:MUCH OF Kenya is getting back to normal. Kofi Annan flew out last weekend after a new power-sharing cabinet was sworn in, and the 40 ministers and 52 assistant ministers have begun appointing their staffs and selecting their preferred model of Mercedes.
But for Alice Wambui, normality means wrapping her children in plastic bags as the rain hammers down on her simple shelter in a camp for homeless people.
"The problem we have is the houses," she says, sitting beside a boiling pot of beans. "Every night we are getting rain inside. It drips through. I worry about my children and the diseases they might catch."
Her story is typical. While President Mwai Kibaki and his rival for power, Raila Odinga, have managed to settle their differences for now, tens of thousands of people still have no prospect of returning home.
Some 140,000 people are living in camps, according to government figures. A further 200,000 have fled their homes to live with family elsewhere in Kenya.
They fear the tribal violence that flared in the wake of disputed elections could return at any time.
The camps dotted through Burnt Forest in the Rift Valley remain the safest places for people like Mrs Wambui, who is struggling to bring up her children alone after her husband died two years ago. She is Kikuyu, a tribe targeted by neighbours from the Kalenjin tribe.
Dermot Ahern, Minister for Foreign Affairs, arrived in Kenya yesterday to see for himself the aftermath.
Mr Ahern heard how dozens of informal settlements remain in church grounds or around police stations two months after the violence subsided.
Gradually people are moving into organised camps with water, toilets and acres of plastic sheeting to build shelters.
Mrs Wambui says she will only feel safe in Central Kenya, close to Mount Kenya, the land that the Kikuyu call home.
"It is taking a long time getting there though," she says. "There are no living premises there. That's the problem."
For now her living quarters are basic. Her children sleep on a bare earth floor and do the best they can to keep dry now that the seasonal rains have arrived.
A pile of sticks is drying inside her shelter and the smell of woodsmoke wafts around the small area she calls home.
Burnt Forest and the Rift Valley saw some of the worst violence in January and February as political disputes degenerated into bloody tribal clashes.
Here the Kalenjin population, who backed opposition leader Mr Odinga, turned on members of the Kikuyu tribe, whose members include President Kibaki.
The clashes were triggered by allegations of vote-rigging in December's disputed election but also reflected long-standing tension between the tribes over land and wealth.
A political deal, brokered by Mr Annan, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, was concluded last week when a vast cabinet was sworn in.
The most significant change was the inclusion of the new post of prime minister, given to Mr Odinga.
While a political solution has been found, no one expects to find a quick remedy for the tribal fissures exposed in Kenyan society.
Ros O'Sullivan, emergency response co-ordinator for Concern, said aid agencies were not expecting many people to return home before the end of the year.
"Some of what brought them here has been resolved with the political settlement," he says. "But neighbour turned on neighbour, people living together were forced apart and we are into a very long, painstaking process of reconciliation.
"Then there is the issue of compensation. People need to know how they can rebuild their lives."
A day earlier President Kibaki and his prime minister met MPs from the Rift Valley to discuss exactly this question.
But the meeting was stormy and he was rebuffed by the mainly Kalenjin politicians, who believe their people are not being offered a fair deal.
Just as tribalism made thousands of people flee in fear, so too it is now hampering the search for a solution.
Mr Ahern, after visiting camps in Kitale and Burnt Forest, said dealing with the displaced people was becoming the most urgent issue.
"Camps become their home and to a certain extent they become reliant on the food supply, the health service, the education available in IDP camps. And the longer they are there the more they can become a source of unrest," he said.
"While I can understand the need for the camps for people who have been raped and burned out of their properties, I think it is something that the international community has to give huge attention to and help the government here."
Mr Ahern is due to meet both President Kibaki and Mr Odinga today and said he would emphasise the need for continuing reconciliation.
Kenya's political deal can only be seen as a starting point. Real success will come when people like Mrs Wambui can go home.