"The kids always ask me, 'Where is he?' And I always say he is going to come back," Kering, a 34-year-old of the Kalenjin tribe, told The Associated Press as she stood in the rubble of her home, torched by a mob last month because her husband is a Kikuyu. "But I hope he stays away, because I love him and I want him to be safe." Since the Dec. 27 vote, marriages that united different ethnic groups have felt the strain as communities shun the Kikuyu tribe of President Mwai Kibaki, whose disputed re-election unleashed a wave of bloodshed that has killed at least 685 people.

Until now, marriages like Kering's were common enough to go largely unnoticed, representing hope for what Kenya could be as a nation. But now the fabric of Kenyan society is fraying, forcing families to confront tribal identities many had cast aside long ago. "This election has changed the very essence of these marriages," said the Rev. Charles Kirui, a Catholic priest whose church in the nearby town of Burnt Forest shelters hundreds of Kikuyus. "Marriages are breaking up because of a tribal conflict, which means we really have a problem in Kenya."

There are no figures on how many families are affected, but the impact is particularly felt in the heart of opposition territory in western Kenya, where tribal tensions have been most inflamed by the election. This country of 38 million was once seen as a stable democracy on a violent continent. But it depended on a delicate balance of intertribal power.

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