Great news!

Great news!! President Kibaki and Mr. Odinga signed a treaty or pact on Thursday making Mr. Odinga the Prime Minister with the stipulation that President Kibaki cannot dismiss or fire him. So everyone is celebrating the beginning of the end of conflict—we hope. This could be a good thing because in the past the winner of the election got all the perks and so did his friends. So even in Mr. Odinga had won, it would have been the same, except for some different people. This way they have to share and work together and I think it will be good for the country. There a lot of issues to iron out—changing the constitution to allow for a prime minister, election reform, what to do with those who were displaced, etc. So it will still be a little thorny but there is a release of tension here in Kenya. They have opened Uhuru Park again for anyone, and there were celebrations throughout the western part of Kenya. I was very discouraged on Monday when the talks stalled and both parties walked out of the negotiations. Tuesday Mr. Odinga called for another demonstration on Thursday, but on Wednesday afternoon, he postponed the demonstration. We were scheduled to go to Eldoret on Thursday. I was not anxious to get up there and be in the thick of things, but Wednesday afternoon when the demonstration was postponed, we decided to go ahead and trust that we’d be okay. We arrived in Eldoret about 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning, and late that afternoon an announcement was made that the agreement had been signed. You could tell that everyone was relieved to say the least. We watched the proceedings on TV that night and offered prayers of Thanksgiving. It’s not all over, we are seeing revenge violence breaking out, but healing can now start to take place and the people and economy, etc can begin to progress forward. Which means it will probably be safe to have my children come to visit later this year. Yahoo!!