There is a collection of government officials whose job it is to visit institutions like ours, add a code to random items and record these on paper.

They visited my classroom a couple of weeks ago. Look at the back of the children’s chairs now and you will spot a code written in indelible ink. When I first started teaching kindergarten at Bingham I painted my classroom including the frame around our ‘choosing board’ (4 year-old speak). Paint colours here are created by adding pigment to white. It is all done by guesswork so that no two batches of paint are ever the same colour. Guess what - the frame now sports an indelible off-centre code, but I am unable to cover and rewrite it more discreetly even if I wanted to.

Imagine our horror when we heard that these same officials would be making visits to the staff apartments. In preparation I had a productive Sunday afternoon sticking ‘personal’ labels on all our own possessions. I’m glad to say that the visit came and went and although codes were studiously recorded in a ledger, the officials were very restrained in the use of the permanent marker.

On another note, you can predict the soft drink varieties available to buy in any supermarket in Addis. Eager to be surprised however, my eyes fell upon a small can on a supermarket shelf containing (or so the manufacturer claimed) a coconut drink with the bonus of added coconut pieces. I added the can to my basket in anticipation. I was thirsty later and curious to try this brand new beverage. It did indeed contain small pieces of something – they tasted and had a texture, rather like apple. As soon as they were released into a glass they floated enticingly on top of the cloudy liquid which had the consistency and sweetness of a thin syrup.

A feature that could certainly have enhanced this drink would have been if it had the flavour of coconut.