The women of Kawula village say they have traded in blisters for beauty and regained freshness where they were once out of breath, all thanks to machines provided by the UN refugee agency. The machines in question are not cosmetic or sport gadgets. Instead, they are rice mills donated by UNHCR as part of community empowerment projects in north-western Sierra Leone's Kambia district, one of the major areas of return for Sierra Leonean refugees who fled the country during the decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.