The agreement, hammered out by Kofi Annan after weeks of political wrangling, paved the way for a grand coalition government. It was a breakthrough in a part of the world where traditionally winner takes all.

Kenya, of enormous strategic influence in the “war on terror”, found itself under pressure from the international community to secure a deal that would quickly restore its status as one of Africa’s most stable states.

Eventually the rivals relented and signed a deal that brought the country back from the brink of civil war.

Six months on and the coalition is still intact, the western backers have sighed with relief but the fissures that fuelled the violence are still there.

Tens of thousands of displaced people are still in tented camps.

Others have been forced to return to their “homelands”, chased away after the election because their grandparents were not born in the place they chose to farm.

This is one of the biggest challenges the new coalition government now faces.

Violence probe

“We are under pressure to behave like a coherent nation? but the truth is those issues remain very much unresolved,” says political commentator Parselelo Kantai.

Commissions of enquiry have been established to examine the circumstances of the disputed election and the violence that quickly followed.

But many Kenyans have little faith that their recommendations will be adopted, given past experience of such tribunals.

Land, ethnicity and the distribution of power are key areas that Kenya’s politicians ignore at their peril.

Land lies at the heart of Kenya’s historic grievances. Three-quarters of the population still lives in rural areas, many relying on what they grow to survive. But land is also about ethnic identity and ancestry.

Joseph Wanjama is a living example of that. He is among the many people chased away from the Rift Valley Town of Kericho back in January. He is Kikuyu – a member of President Kibaki’s tribe. An entire community held responsible for an election widely seen as a fraud.

Mr. Wanjama’s home is now a tented camp in the town of Nakuru.

But he agreed to venture back for a few hours to Kericho – the place which he fled. It was not his ancestral heartland but he had made a life for himself there, employing dozens of people from outside his own tribe.

Within minutes of arriving in what is still a tense town, we find members of the rival Kalenjin community now occupying his business.

And the staff quarters where dozens of craftsmen once lived are now partially destroyed and being looked after by a Kalenjin friend.

“They tell us it isn’t over yet,” Mr. Wanjama whispers. “If we come back, something bad will happen.”

This is not paranoia, it is the aftershocks that follow when a country, once a model of peace, crosses the line.

Land reform

In many places communities are forbidden to return, their tormentors saying that only once amnesty is granted to those accused of post election crimes will real peace be restored.

Extra security has been put in place to try to entice communities back. But it is not working.

Many Kenyans harbour dreams of land reform.

There are huge expectations that a wholesale distribution of land may be in the pipeline – a dream nurtured by politicians at election time.

Managing such expectations will require courage and statesmanship on a massive scale.

For Prime Minister Odinga, it is time to deliver some hard truths.

“We need to be frank with our people,” he said.

“What we need to come up [with is] a system whereby land is used as a means of production? it should not be used for speculative purposes. It’s only that way that we will develop this country.”

Land is one of the most fertile areas for corruption. Deeds are often sold to people for the same piece of land and in Kenya land has long been a form of political patronage. Reversing this will be like trying to turn a tanker around.

Proud people 

Now more than ever before, Kenyans are craving more political engagement with their leaders – calling on them to take their messages of reconciliation to the field rather than remain in the comfort of the capital.

In Yamumbe camp for displaced people near the town of Eldoret, Rosemary Wambui is in charge of the cleaning rota. These are proud people and though they may be confined to tents, there are standards to be kept.

Yamumbe is a satellite camp, a little closer to the farm Ms Wambui was forced to leave six months ago. But she is exasperated by Kenya’s politicians.

“They’re already talking about 2012,” she explodes.

That is the date for the next round of elections.

“They just want us to unite but how can we be reunited when they are divided over 2012.”

There is a real fear that Kenya’s leaders will take their eye off the ball, get distracted by political ambition rather than address the realities on the ground.

There was a lot of talk about “one Kenya” during the honeymoon period that followed the peace deal. A Kenya where you put your nationality first and your tribal loyalties last.

But Bernard Ndege paid a heavy price for practicing that principle. A member of the Luo community – Mr. Odinga’s group – he saw all of his eight children burnt to death when their house was set alight in the town of Naivasha.

It was clearly a reprisal attack for the thousands of Kikuyus who had been killed or displaced in the weeks before. Yet the bitter irony of Mr. Ndege’s story, is that he voted for someone from a different community in the parliamentary vote and a fellow tribesman in the presidential vote.

He has now been forced to retreat to the place he was born on the shores of Lake Victoria.

He is a lonely and isolated figure who would vote the same way again if there was an election tomorrow.

But he is angry that no politician has taken responsibility for what happened: violence promoted from the top with hate speech and cash, and executed at the grassroots to deadly effect.

“My family perished from an election related incident but people were elected on that account have never come back and said this happened because of us,” he says.

Kenya is now going through a period of quiet self reflection. A vast coalition cabinet is trying to hold the country together in this transitional phase.

An emboldened parliament and press is now under pressure to hold the executive in check and deliver on one of the key promises – a new constitution by the middle of next year.

Kenya may be on a path towards restoring normality, but it is not yet out of the woods.

On your way from the airport to the city’s seafront accommodation, you can see a huge ugly scar against the lower slopes of the famed Table Mountain.

The scar, now covered in weeds and rubble, was once the vibrant, colorful and multi-racial community of District Six. Situated conveniently alongside the city centre where many residents worked, it was first established as the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town in 1867. But beginning in the late 1960s, it was demolished by the perpetrators of apartheid, who forced its people to relocate to the remote, sandy wastes outside of town.

Since the advent of democracy, work to redevelop District Six has begun, but progress is slow and only small sections have been rebuilt. However, if you want to see what District Six used to look like and learn the story of how apartheid ripped the community apart, there is the District Six Museum.

Arriving there for a visit, we were greeted by Noor Ebrahim, a tour guide who was evicted from his home during the 1970s.

Noor reminisced with passion of how diverse the area was, with people who were classified under apartheid as “white”, “colored”, “black” and “Asian” all living as one undivided community – until 1966, when the area was declared “white” under the apartheid law known as the Group Areas Act.

The forced removals started in 1968, beginning a process in which more than 60,000 residents were relocated to the “Cape Flats” – townships such as Manenberg, Heideveld, Delft, Langa and Khayelitsha. The houses on the “Flats” lacked basic amenities for a decent life. The government promised work to all those who were relocated but the jobs did not last.

In 1970, people’s homes in District Six, as well as some places of worship, were flattened. Noor was one of many who watched as their houses were being crushed by bulldozers.

One of the churches that remained standing was the Buitenkant Street Methodist Church, situated between District Six and Cape Town’s city centre. During the 1980s, as the struggle against apartheid reached its height, this church was named the “Freedom Church” when it became a venue for anti-apartheid meetings and a place of sanctuary for victims of police brutality and protestors trying to escape detention.

Today this church is the District Six Museum.

In the middle of the building, taking up most of the floor, is a plastic mat which displays a map of District Six. Former residents of the area who visit the museum write their names on the streets on which they lived.

Suspended from the ceiling is a calico cloth about 1.5 meters wide and 10 meters high. It is embroidered with the names and stories of people who were forcibly removed from their homes. One gets to see exactly how they felt.

Along the stairs leading to the first floor of the museum, and against a wall, are original street signs, collected by a bulldozer operator as he was demolishing the properties. He later handed them to the museum.

The museum also recreates a typical District Six room and even a hair salon, and there are plenty of images of the way it used to look, as well as histories explaining how and why apartheid removals were conducted.

With its photographs, stories and recreated scenes, this museum is definitely the place to visit if you want a taste of the District Six struggle.