A quarter-mile-long plume of dust rises from the main road leading into the Komakec Internally Displaced Persons camp in Northern Uganda.1 The wet season is supposed to have started already, but the rains have not come. The vendors and their storefronts will soon be covered in dirt powder, making them look like orange-red ghosts. Aya. Most of the stores have been long closed anyway because of the danger of transporting goods and money to Kitgum, the trading center fifty kilometers to the south. The rebel Lord's Re sistance Army (LRA) has been at war with the Ugandan government for twenty years now, and it regularly raids supply trucks. Komakec is remote, ten miles by mountain from the Sudan border to the north. Lilly, my hostess, is peeling cassava, and she raises her head from her task only when loudspeak ers blare what to me is an unintelligible screech. Lilly puts her peeling tub aside and gets up quickly. "The UN trucks. They are announcing food distribution day." "When is it?" "Now."