NAIROBI is the place to be. Kofi Annan is here. Nelson Mandela's wife Graca is here. Condoleezza Rice, the best bit of George Bush's government, is here. George Dubya himself got as far as the border but didn't venture across. British Foreign Secretary, the Boy David, looked in. Ban Ki-moon, who followed Annan as the top man at the United Nations, was here. The Farmer is here, and so is the Breadwinner.

All is quieting down among the troubles which flared after the botched election which most people think was somehow stolen. It isn't easy for a visitor to gauge, but as we read in the local press, the president was announced as the winner despite his party only getting half as many MPs as the main opposition.

Every day something gets a little better. Another school re-opens. Another cruise ship or aircraft arrives with some of the hardier tourists. Another food comes back on stream. On our first day back in Kenya we were told we could only have frozen fish because the roads to the Indian Ocean, where they catch their red snappers, were closed. And we couldn't get fish from Lake Victoria because the roads were blocked by post-election violence.

First the roads to the coast reopened. Then the roads to the west were opened by the expensive device of getting drivers to change at the tribal boundaries to avoid being hauled from their cabs and beaten up or worse. So the fish leave Kisumu on Lake Victoria with Luo drivers and Kikuyu drivers take over before they get to the hotspot of Nakuru.

God is still in His heaven. He shines on us every day and at night He makes it cool enough for a good night's sleep under the Equatorial sky.

We got a good idea of the sort of problems faced by farmers from our old friend Bill Dickie. He looks after 2500 sows in five units for the biggest firm of bacon producers in East Africa, Farmer's Choice.

More than half the market for all that pork is tourists, and the troubles, with at least 1000 dead in tribal violence, has killed tourism stone dead. Most of the million-plus tourists should be breakfasting on Farmer's Choice bacon but now it is up to two old Scots.

That is serious. Two hundred and fifty men are employed on Bill's farms and half as many again in processing it. If all the tourists come back their jobs will be safe, but the company is working on plans for horrendous staff cuts if they don't. There is no unemployment benefit or social security.

Bill himself is doing extraordinarily well. He came here from a farm 700 feet above Ailsa Craig in 1952. He was a white settler under the British government's scheme to develop the "White Highlands".

Bill got 900 acres but gave that up when Kenya got independence. His wife came home but Bill had got too used to the sun on his back and stayed.

It is now six years since he was a mere 84 and driving far too fast round his farms when he ran out of road.

He survived, but his left hip was so badly smashed they had to give him a new one. That seemed a success but an infection had got in and eventually they had to take it out and leave Bill with no hip at all.

When we saw Bill two years ago, we thought we had seen the end of one pig farmer.

Not a bit of it. Last week, Bill greeted us standing up looking bronzed and fit in his settler's shorts. He walks slowly with a zimmer but he is in constant touch by phone with his farms and with his five drivers.

Once a week he is driven round to make sure that everything is being done right. And he's furious with the Scottish rugby team, whose every move he watches on his telly.

Bill swears as much as ever and takes whisky every day, including a tablespoonful among his ice-cream. That is so delicious that the Farmer has sworn never to take ice-cream without a droppie, not ever again. One of the things that intrigues the Farmer is the focus of hatred on one very small matter.

Most of the tribes in Kenya have male circumcision as one of their customs. But the Luo, the second largest tribe and the one to which the leader of the opposition belongs, do not. The president's tribe think that is very primitive of the Luo, not to say unhygienic.

The Breadwinner and the Farmer were entertained when they were living in Kenya, by the case of one young Luo who was working in a Kikuyu area.

He was kidnapped by some of his age mates. They then had a whip round for the operation and dragged him off to hospital where the surgeons tidied him up - dressed him suitably for life in Kikuyuland. That was all very civilised and the lad's mother was said to have contributed to his prepuce fundie.

But the present troubles have seen that tension taken to a higher level. There are unconfirmed reports of Luo youths being rounded up in Nairobi, and the offending skin being removed by force, using broken bottles for scalpels.

Even if that rumour is exaggerated, the very fact that Luos can believe it, shows just how deep the tribal problems run.

It is point well taken in pleas for a tolerance of tribe to avoid a Kenyan repetition of Nazi intolerance of race.

It is time for all Kenyans to protect their neighbours who have moved in from another tribal area, as the following quote from the Daily Standard, which paraphrases a poem by Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi theologian Martin Neimoller, shows.

"When they came for the Jews I kept quiet because I am not a Jew; Then they came for the Communists and I kept quiet because I was not a Communist; Then they came for the trade unionists and I still kept quite because I was not a trade unionist; Finally, they came for me, and there was nobody to defend me."