Nairobi Letter: You know you have outstayed your welcome when your host lays on a farewell party and books your flight home.
That is exactly the position Somalia's fledgling government finds itself in after spending almost three years in neighbouring Kenya.
The transitional government has postponed its homecoming several times, with donors left to foot million-dollar bills at some of Nairobi's most exclusive hotels.
Previous deadlines have come and gone as warring militias continue to make the Somali capital too dangerous for the politicians. Yet on Monday Somali MPs and ministers were treated to a leaving do hosted by the Kenyan president at State House in Nairobi.
The first of a series of flights left Nairobi for Somalia the same day, much to the relief of ordinary Kenyans who have watched the behaviour of their guests degenerate into something of a farce.
As John Mbugua, a Nairobi taxi-driver, puts it: "They should have gone home a long time ago. They have been doing nothing here apart from living in luxury, in the sort of hotels that we cannot afford to stay in."
In fact the luxury hotels came to an end last Wednesday, when the Intergovernmental Authority on Development - the African body sponsoring the talks - stopped paying the bills.
The 500 assorted MPs, advisers and hangers-on were given a deadline to check out of their city-centre hotels and move to cheaper accommodation in Eastleigh, a less-than-luxurious corner of Nairobi.
"It is a bit embarrassing, but we are doing it," said one MP, who asked to remain anonymous.
The MPs have needed a high embarrassment threshold.
Last year hundreds of delegates were temporarily kicked out of their Nairobi hotel after the manager said they had racked up bills of more than $1 million.
Other hotels in Eldoret, the town where the peace talks began, said they had been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by unpaid bills.
Worse was to come. Earlier this year Kenyan TV broadcast footage of MPs fighting in a hotel conference room. Delegates - dressed in suits and ties - were shown wielding sticks and heavy chairs following the breakdown of talks over peacekeepers. Several had to be treated for bloody head wounds.
The men in suits may be MPs, but the bloody debacle was a reminder that many had won their seats by controlling the very militias that have destroyed the country.
In recent years Kenya has become a centre for peace talks as the Nairobi government seeks to increase its regional influence and bring a degree of stability to some of east Africa's trouble-
spots.
The high rate of violent crime in Nairobi is blamed in part on the easy availability of guns from Somalia and southern Sudan, where a 21-year civil war was negotiated to an end in January.
But prospects for peace in Somalia seem rather less promising. The country has been without a government since 1991.
Warlords carved the country into personal fiefdoms and continue to vie for strategic ports, airstrips and towns today.
Dozens of people died last week when a long-running dispute between two subclans over control of Garbaharrey, a town close to the Kenyan border, erupted into violence.
Preparations for the return of MPs have also come undone. Although dozens of checkpoints were dismantled in Mogadishu last week, many had been restored by the weekend.
And the government remains deeply divided on where to make its first home. Mogadishu warlords in the government are insisting on the capital and have travelled there to make the case that it is safe.
Others allied with President Abdullahi Yusuf plan to first return to Jowhar, north of the capital, and the southern town of Baidoa, with a liaison office in Mogadishu. They argue that the capital must be pacified before the government can fully relocate there.
The result is a mess, with no guarantees that all the MPs will leave Nairobi despite the farewell party.
Even the president has not set a date for his triumphant return. He left Nairobi on Monday for the Somali town of Jowhar, but his flight landed somewhat mysteriously in Djibouti. Apparently the Jowhar runway was too dark.
Yusuf Mohamed Ismail, spokesman for the president, admitted that the return plans were less than perfect.
"After 14 years of long and senseless civil war, and two years of talks, no one can expect everything to run just smoothly," he said. "We have to be very pragmatic."
Although publicly the Kenyan government has worked hard to explain that it is not kicking the Somalis out of the country, no one doubts that pressure has been quietly exerted behind the scenes.
But as he prepared to leave, Mr Yusuf said he had nothing but thanks for his hosts. "We are extremely grateful to the people and government of Kenya, to neighbouring countries and the international community.
"We don't feel any pressure to leave, but the time is right."