Hamit Dakolli stands outside the canvas tent which has housed him, his wife and seven children in this Albanian border town for the past two months. "We will be going back to nothing. The Serbs burned our homes and took all our money, but I don't care any more. My heart is full of pride and happiness because at last we are going home. . .The children have been frightened and tearful since we arrived. But today they smile."
The significance of the Yugoslav peace agreement is beginning to sink in among Kosovo's army of refugees. For the first time, they are letting themselves believe the suffering may be over.
"It is suddenly a little easier to live here. I can see the end," said Hamit. An engineer, he was forced from his home in Metrovica by Serb paramilitaries, some of whom he recognised as former friends and neighbours. His house was raided, his valuables taken; he was separated from relatives, threatened and beaten; and the uncle he left behind was executed. He joined the human convoy out of his town to Kukes, a gruelling three-day walk away. His story is not unique - thousands could tell the same - but the pained expression on his face vouches for how individual it feels to him.
"We cannot live with the Serbs again. They have committed such violence against us. I would be surprised if they were there when we return with NATO."
NATO can do no wrong in the eyes of Kosovo's displaced. The only criticism is that the air raids were not more frequent or more ferocious.
"It was right for NATO to destroy everything in Kosovo. It was war and they had no choice," said Hamit. "We now want justice and only NATO can bring us that. We don't trust the Russians. They will protect the Serbs, not us."
He said the Kosovo Liberation Army should be allowed to keep their arms under the command of an international peacekeeping force, pending independence. However, he believes "no one wants to keep fighting. We don't want revenge". Others don't share his feelings.
"If I find my sister and nephew are dead, I would kill," said Ms Selvije Germizaj, a medic who, like so many refugees, dreads what has happened to family members left behind in Kosovo. "I would join the KLA and kill those who murdered my family. I know I am a doctor and maybe it is wrong for me to say it. But that is how I feel."
Sceptical of Thursday's peace deal, she said the air strikes should continue "until every Serb soldier has left Kosovo".
"I don't believe Milosevic will keep his word - 33 times he made peace agreements over Bosnia and he broke them all."
She admits not all Serbs were responsible for the "cleansing" of towns like Prizren, where she worked in a charity hospice. However, none would be welcome back.
"After what has happened, we cannot forgive. Our own neighbours turned against us, the people we used to greet in the morning. They came to our house and said `We will kill you if you do not leave'. I will never forget that moment between life and death."
She, too, is grateful for the air strikes. "If NATO hadn't destroy our homes, Serbia would have. Maybe we won't have a house or hospital left standing, but we will be glad to be back anyway. We are a strong people and will start all over again."
Also starting fresh are the hundreds of aid agencies which have been struggling since March 24th to cope with the exodus of at least 800,000 refugees, more than half the population of Kosovo. After assisting with their dispersal, the relief organisations must now help to bring the Kosovars home without triggering another humanitarian crisis.
"We don't want to have people suddenly flooding back across the border," said Mr Daniel Enders, the UNHCR`S emergency team leader in Kukes. "The infrastructure here is already severely stretched. We have half of the available water we had three months ago and we are in danger of creating a rift with the local population."
HE said the UN refugee agency will, for the time being, continue to attempt to move people south from Kukes, where some 120,000 refugees remain, to camps in southern Albania that are better equipped to cope with the onset of winter. Such thinking discloses a feeling, shared by all the agencies, that it will be months, not weeks, before the refugees will be able to return.
"First the mines will have to be cleared and unexploded devices will have to be removed, as only then can the reconstruction phase begin," said Mr Enders.
According to UNHCR reports, up to half of all homes in Kosovo have been destroyed and 70 per cent of the remainder have been damaged. Water, electricity and food shortages are also said to be widespread. Of 200,000 hectares of arable land in Kosovo, only 76,000 hectares have been cultivated this year. "We are facing a long-term problem in terms of food," said Ms Anna Dilellio, of the World Food Programme. "We were already hearing stories of severe food shortages in Kosovo as well as the Serbs stealing the aid which we had air-dropped into the area."
There was talk even of a famine in Kosovo this week after refugees arrived at the Albanian border in an emaciated state. That fear, at least, seems to have abated.
But new concerns have emerged, among them the fate of the international war crimes tribunal. Mr Brendan Paddy, a human rights monitor with Amnesty International, said: "We have to make sure the investigations continue, that effective access is given to Kosovo to ensure proper forensic examinations are carried out and that the people identified and indicted as war criminals are brought to trial. We can't have a repeat of Bosnia, where only a handful of cases were followed up."
There are also security concerns associated with the movement of refugees home.
"We are just coming out of a war and it would be dangerous to let hundreds of thousands of people pour back into Kosovo overnight," said Mr Walter Stocker, head of the Red Cross delegation in Kukes. "Most of the refugees have no papers. They have to be identified first and brought home in a controlled fashion. Otherwise, there could be chaos."
The growing infiltration of refugee camps by the KLA and criminal gangs has been causing much concern among relief agencies recently. Such caution, however, contrasts sharply with the feelings of refugees impatient to return home. Hamit, for one, is already dreaming of a new life.
"I cannot wait another day to get back," he said. "To live in the mountains, or even a tent like this in Kosovo, would make me happy again."