Moving Forward, Inching Closer

"I'm beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel." Kofi Annan.

Well, I'll BE!

Music to my ears.

And, in response to a special request by yours truly, the Daily Nation on Friday included the word 'Hope' in their frontpage headlines.

Good people, at the tail end of a down in the dumps week, I'm almost smiling. Almost, I said. But give me a couple of signatures on the dotted line and I'll be dancing the night away. Or some such.

Mutula Kilonzo who's on the PNU negotiating team says it's "a balanced deal that won't please everybody." Compromises all around. That's what we've been talking about. Ego and ambition sacrificed at the altar of the national good. Amen.

Can we almost get on with our lives already?

Because I had plans for 2008, I did.

But then again so did the circa 350,000 Internally Displaced People around the country who only have tattered lives to show for it now.

That's the thing (there's always a thing you see): the signing of a political deal is not the end, it is the beginning. Still much to be done in the days, months and years ahead.

I worry about the level of mistrust and suspicion between the two sides of the political divide and what that will mean going forward. But maybe I fret unnecessarily. Martha Karua and Sally Kosgei were seen chatting amicably enough at the end of yesterday's session. Perhaps they might all yet overcome their sharp differences and work as a team to move this country forward.

We're scraping hope from the bottom of the barrel, and believing they can because they must.