Chris McCall, Banda Aceh – Behind Banda Aceh's landmark Baiturrahman mosque, a street vendor was scratching a living as he does every day, mashing up sugar cane for drinks.
"Is there a new agreement? We don't know about politics," he said when told of a one-month "moratorium on violence" signed on Wednesday by Acehnese rebels and the Indonesian Government in Switzerland.
Indonesian Defence Minister Mahfud Mahmoddin may have enthused about a deal he had so often predicted would not happen – but there appeared little excitement yesterday among ordinary Acehnese about it. After all, the province's once-sleepy capital is getting used to being a war zone.
Truckloads of police and military routinely patrol the streets, assault rifles at the ready. People keep their noses clean and their names to themselves.
"I heard on the news that after the 15th, the violence will go down for one month. They say there should be no violence," said an old man sitting talking to friends near the mosque. A passer- by was more blunt. "There is no proof to believe that."
At the end of make-or-break talks, Jakarta's envoys and the Free Aceh Movement agreed on the further month's pause in hostilities and arranged to hold additional talks. Mr Mahfud had promised all-out war if the failed "humanitarian pause" already in place, but which runs out on Monday, was not renewed in some form. If carried out, his threat could drag out the conflict in the oil- rich, staunchly Muslim province for years.
The rebels in turn had issued a veiled threat to foreign firms operating in Aceh, calling on them to close down because their security could not be guaranteed.
Like the street vendor at the mosque, many ordinary people did not even know about the deal yesterday. Those who did suggested it had just delayed the feared military onslaught by a month, although they were relieved to have this much respite and hoped for the best.
The leading daily Serambi Indonesia ran a long editorial headed, "Don't Panic and Don't Cause Panic", urging the citizens not to give up hope for peace after Monday, when the ceasefire was to have expired. Many people have been fearing the launch of mass raids and arrests from that day.
Now the "humanitarian pause" is going to be replaced with something else promising to be equally pointless. The key issue of whether or not Aceh can leave Indonesia is unanswered.
Banda Aceh was once a pleasant city where backpackers stopped off en route to the beaches of Weh Island to the north. Now everyone jumps when a tyre bursts in the street, thinking it might be a bomb.
At the modest headquarters of the Information Centre for Aceh Referendum (SIRA), a student said she did not dare return to her home in Aceh's second city, Lhokseumawe, because of violence in the area. Jakarta's line is increasingly hard.
SIRA's leader Muhammad Nazar, who has campaigned for an East Timor-style referendum as a solution to the Aceh problem, is awaiting trial for subversion. He has not advocated violence.
Despite more than seven months of semi-truce, killings are occurring almost daily, especially in the northern and eastern areas where support for the rebels is strongest and military and police operations are most intense.
Back at the mosque, there is one sign no one has yet dared to take down. In a prominent position alongside a busy road and signed "By SIRA", it blares out to the world in huge letters: "The Aceh people want a referendum – stay with or break away from the Republic of Indonesia."