Back to the Land, Warily

Edward Orandi, who had arrived on his own a month earlier, walked up the road to greet them. "Welcome, welcome," he said as they unloaded jerrycans, washbasins and burlap sacks.

"It's good to be back home," said Henry Momata. Others shook hands and exchanged news with Orandi.

Orandi had already pitched his tent and started farming, albeit only half his field. He said he thought that security was adequate and that things would be okay.

But as Karen Mumanyi walked down the dirt path to her farm for the first time since January, passing through smashed gates and into the charred ruins of her house, where bits of a white tea set were scattered on the floor, she was not thinking much about farming.

"I'm scared," she said. "I'm at the boundary."

The boundary was the line of bushes at the edge of her plot. Beyond it was the local market, a row of one-story shops where in better days people from Geta farm, who come from the Kisii tribe, traded corn and other vegetables with the neighboring community of Kalenjins, who have tended to consider the Geta farmers outsiders on their traditional land.

According to Mumanyi and others, the militiamen that attacked them came from just across the boundary, where people were now sitting outside shops in the late afternoon.

Not one of them came to greet the new arrivals.

Later, Edward Lagat, a Kalenjin, said that although he had no problem with his neighbors, he was certain that others in his community remained bitter. He also noted that there is a brewing jealousy among Kalenjin farmers who are facing their own difficulties and believe that their Kisii neighbors -- always perceived as favored by the government -- are once again getting special treatment.

"The government has to provide people here with seeds and fertilizer," he said, sitting in the shade of a shop. "They have to treat people equally."

But for Elias Kampoi, 25, the old political grievances over land and favoritism -- stirred up by local politicians during the election campaign -- were fading as the prospect of hunger loomed.

"We are still saying this land belongs to Kalenjin," he said without much enthusiasm. "But we are worried that there will be a shortage of food. We shall not have enough."

Five months after Kalenjin and other militias wreaked havoc across the Rift Valley, he had decided, he said, that "it was not worth it."

"There is no gain," he said. "All of us have lost. We haven't farmed, and they haven't farmed."