Reporters on the Job

• Rice, Again: While reporting today's story about spreading hunger in Africa (see story), staff writer Abraham McLaughlin was reminded of the Darfur refugee camps and the relief workers helping them. While none of the aid workers were going hungry, they weren't exactly getting plump either. The area he visited last year was in Chad, which is on the southern edge of the Sahara and a few miles from the border with Darfur.

"The British, French, and Americans working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees there hadn't had fresh fruit or vegetables in three months. They lived and worked in a four-room mud-brick house with a tin roof. They mostly slept outside, because it was cooler. Hunched over another bowl of rice and stringy chicken, one of them said longingly, "Oh, what I wouldn't give for just one little orange."

David Clark Scott
World editor