Traditional holiday hymns are sung by a group of men dressed in cultural outfits with decorations made from a horse's mane around the Bole area. The early weeks of September bring with them a panoply of festivities. A soft holiday spirit glistens the streets of Addis Abeba, while roaring hordes of shoppers grappling with inflation rates near 30pc do not grace marketplaces like they used to. The tight clampdown on access to foreign currency by the Ministry of Finance which banned the import of 38 items in October has pushed the price of imported clothes to new heights.