When I heard that the Labour Party is pledging to renationalise the railways in the UK because they are “expensive and inefficient”, I had to supress an urge to invite Mr Corbyn to pop down here to Addis for a week and find out what living under nationalised industries is like.

“Give me all your money!” demanded the scruffy young boy, holding out his hand whilst flapping it in the way beggars here always do. This request came my way while we were out and about in the countryside several months ago – a common demand, although since being here I’ve not previously been asked quite so directly. He was clearly very poor, but I had to explain to him that I had no money on me (which I hadn’t) and he slunk off disconsolately. Usually the demand is just “Money! Money!”, and our white faces make us targets - often when in more remote areas; less so in Addis where being white is not quite so unusual.

“I’ll turn left here then,” Phil said as he manoeuvred the car down a narrow street. I consulted my instructions again. “There should be a hill, but this is flat,” I observed despondently. With no addresses in Addis, descriptions and landmarks are used to locate any specific point of interest that you want to visit. On this occasion it was a hairdresser that had been recommended to me, and I was keen to try.

Dr Mesghina

He had a habit of doing this. Time management and planning ahead have different meanings in Ethiopia, and Dr Mesghina’s skills were finely honed. He jumped up at the end of one of our meetings last October, headed to the front and announced that our group would be having a weekend retreat before Christmas and that “Dr Phil will be doing the talks”. This was the first anyone – the group, the leadership and especially Dr Phil – had heard of this plan.