The speeding convoy of official cars, replete with motorcycle escorts and flashing lights, has become a familiar sight on the bedraggled streets in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. The city's people have become accustomed to the various heads of state, their spouses and emissaries, arriving in fancy jets, offering their condolences, and heading off before the dust of Teguce, as it is called, sticks to their ankles.
All of which means the arrival of the President, Mrs McAleese, was greeted with predictable warmth and a flurry of local news coverage this week. But her ceremonial arrival at the airport, with honour guard and red carpet, did not prepare local officials for the gruelling two days she was about to undertake, or the hard questions she would raise in the most polite and understated of fashions.
A scene at the makeshift settlement of El Pantanal in the hills above the city was both tragic and nearly comic. The hillside housed hundreds of people, but the mudslides of the hurricane destroyed their homes. Now, without water and electricity, they huddle on the hillside in rickety homemade shacks, with plastic sheeting as roofs. Some are sleeping in tents.
They want to rebuild here. They feel safe on higher ground, with the river well below. But the government has other ideas. It wants the families to move to an adjacent lower area of land, where it will be cheaper to bring in water and electricity. It is, in short, a land dispute and the families feel that no one is listening to them.
The President, accompanied by her husband, Dr Martin McAleese, and her delegation, toured the area this week in the company of the Honduran Minister of Development, Mr Moises Starkman. Mr Starkman was practically mobbed as he appeared. The people have been trying to get him to visit the site, or at least respond to their concerns and thus far he has been invisible and silent. Sadly, say some, that response is not unusual. Mr Starkman, for instance, commutes to Miami, Florida, where his family lives, at weekends. The circumstance of having a government official not even a full- time resident of the country is not uncommon.
Ms Sally O'Neill, of Trocaire, the Irish aid agency which has been working with the community, explained to Mr Starkman that her agency and others could bring electricity and water to the people there. "We are ready to go, Mr Starkman," she said.
The Minister looked and sounded defensive, caught in the spotlight as Mrs McAleese looked on, not saying a substantive or blatantly political word, but whose visit here, miles away from the pomp of the Honduran Presidential Palace, had allowed him to be confronted by the community.
"We didn't even know where the original houses were. This has been difficult," said Mr Starkman.
"Well, we have a map of exactly where the houses were," said Ms O'Neill. "We can start right now."
The Minister grunted and said that was good.
The President smiled broadly. "Starting is half the job, isn't it?" she said brightly.
Yesterday, Mrs McAleese flew to a northern village that was one of the hardest hit in an area called Santa Rosa de Aguan. It is a place where the Garifuna descendants of black slaves and Caribbean Indians fish from dugout canoes called cayucos and struggle to eke out a living. Their cayucos were washed away during the storm. Now, Irish soldiers are helping to build a combined heath centre-kindergarten.