RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
It was just over a year ago that Kenya's disputed presidential election led to widespread rioting. Rioting along tribal lines. The two leading candidates eventually reached a power-sharing agreement. There's still tension between them, and many ordinary Kenyans say the wounds from last year's fighting still have not healed. NPR's Gwen Thompkins has more.
GWEN THOMPKINS: But something has changed. The guys aren't as optimistic as they used to be. Nesto Ameesi is a barber here.
MONTAGNE: We are trying to build our life to normal, but not normal, the way it was before election.
THOMPKINS: The commission eventually called the race for the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, a candidate from the Kikuyu tribe. But Ameesi says he and most everyone here bet on the other guy, Raila Odinga, the candidate from the Luo tribe.
MONTAGNE: When we are waiting for the results, they announced the wrong person. It's caused everything.
THOMPKINS: But out west, there are still dead bodies at the morgue. And nationwide, there are still food shortages, because so many crops were destroyed or never got planted. What's more, Elvis Odoyo says, the ethnic rifts that were exposed by the election have lingered.
MONTAGNE: It was hell. I mean, and most Kenyans, none of them has even forgiven each other. The perception is that it was only Raila and Kibaki who shook their hands.
THOMPKINS: A year ago, Odoyo was an accountant at a local insurance company, but his company folded. He now runs a rival barber shop in Kibera that doesn't get half the business that Boys II Men does. Would you want an accountant to cut your hair?
MONTAGNE: I love it.
THOMPKINS: Joseph Ogunga Juma is a tailor in the stall next door. He says he lost two sewing machines to looters.
MONTAGNE: You've got to forgive and forget. Your yesterday doesn't determine your tomorrow.
THOMPKINS: But if you did know who did it?
MONTAGNE: Yeah, I would work on him one-on-one.
THOMPKINS: What does that mean?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
MONTAGNE: I wouldn't forgive.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
THOMPKINS: In the Rift Valley, about an hour northwest of Nairobi, Raquel Kabura Kanyi says Kenyans need to see the consequences of their actions.
MONTAGNE: (Through translator) If the government decides not to bring these people to justice, then this problem will remain forever.
THOMPKINS: But When the Kikuyu candidate took the oath of office, a mob of people from other tribes came to Kanyi's house and set it on fire. She and the children fled, and she expected her husband to follow. She later learned he'd been murdered. His body was dumped near a dam.
MONTAGNE: I was not able to bury my husband, because the situation was so bad and people were just killed like dogs. There was no official burying.
THOMPKINS: But beyond owning the land, the people here don't have much with which to begin life anew. Most of them are Kikuyus, who as merchants or farmers don't have the capital to get back into business. They want more from their government. But former shopkeeper James Njoroge doubts that the coalition can deliver justice.
MONTAGNE: (Through translator) A coalition government came together and they forgot us, the common citizen. And now, we are left behind. We are still in the tents. The condition here is in very bad shape.
THOMPKINS: David Gikonyo is a Pentecostal minister who lives in another Kikuyu-dominated community near Nairobi. He says he has only to look at his wife to know that things will get better. She is from the Kalenjin tribe, which was known to commit many of the atrocities against Kikuyus and others in the Rift Valley. And while many inter-tribal marriages failed last year, he says he could never leave her.
MONTAGNE: For me, I think I can not think of divorce. She was the only wife for me.
THOMPKINS: Gikonyo predicts that Kenya will one day be a nation of brotherly love, when Kikuyus are less Kikuyu and Luos are less Luo and Kalenjin are less Kalenjin. Maybe then, he says, everybody will be a little more Kenyan. Gwen Thomkins, NPR News, Nairobi.