The rainy season was losing its grip on Addis Abeba. Patches of pale sky opened between bruised clouds, and streets that had been rivers only days earlier now carried the damp smell of wet soil. Children headed for the new school year traded bright notebooks while showing off crisp uniforms. For many households, the return to classes felt like a reset. For Meseret Assefa, it felt like a tightening knot.

Her twins were starting fourth grade at a private school, and she refused to let poverty dislodge the promise she had made to them.

“Education,” she said, “will not be among the things poverty can strip away.”

However, the uniforms the girls had worn since their father’s death no longer fit. She noticed that their shirts stretched across growing shoulders, and skirts hold tightly to their waist. She paid 3,000 Br each in tuition, then another 3,400 Br for a uniform for each. Two packs of exercise books cost 1,200 Br, and pens another 40. The figures stacked like weights, swallowing what little she had saved.

Two years earlier, life had unravelled when her husband, a ride-hailing driver and the family’s main breadwinner, died in a car crash. Their small rented flat in the Qilinto condominium quickly became unaffordable. Meseret gathered her children and moved back into her parents’ modest house in the Gottera neighbourhood. She now earns 10,000 Br a month as a cashier, which is barely enough for food and bills.

After work, she sets up a makeshift stand and sells samosas until late. On good nights, she makes between 3,000 Br and 5,000 Br, but most of it disappears into groceries and transport.

“I usually end up using it all for everyday bits,” she said, eyes heavy with exhaustion.

Her mother noticed the strain and quietly bought the girls their notebooks. Without that help, Meseret admitted, she might not have been able to send them back to school.

In Merkato, the sprawling market where she shops, life remains a roar. Car horns blare as drivers squeeze through impossible gaps—mud clings to shoes and tyres alike, reflecting the swollen sky. Porters bent under bulging sacks weave through a tide of shoppers. Stalls overflow with lunch boxes, glittering water bottles and exercise books stacked so high they form miniature cityscapes of paper. Prices float above the bustle like warning signs.

Last week, exercise books, branded "Radical," sold between 480 Br and 580 Br a dozen. "Sinarline" reached 600 Br, and "Orbit" climbed to 630 Br. A pack of pencils cost 100 Br to 120 Br, while lunch boxes ranged from 1,200 Br to 3,750 Br. A school bag, every child’s badge of fresh-term pride, costs between 1,700 Br and 3,000 Br.

For Habtamu Kinde, who has sold supplies for three years, prices are not as high as they were last year.

“Every exercise book is up a hundred Birr, pencils are 20 Br more," he told Fortune. "Wholesalers raised theirs first, so we had to follow.”

Meseret walked those alleys with a mind full of sums. What to spend, what to defer, and what to abandon. New bags at 2,000 Br each were simply out of reach. The twins will keep their faded ones with broken zips.

“I’ll sew them,” she said, forcing a smile. “Maybe buy replacements mid-year.”

The girls nod but say little. She knew they noticed the difference.

“They don’t complain,” she whispered, “but when they see other children with new bags and shoes, I can see it in their eyes.”

Across town, Shola Gebeya offered a different scene. Afternoon sun spilt over neat stalls where blue and pink backpacks swayed on hooks. TikTok-famous lunch boxes, wrapped in cellophane, gleamed beside rows of water bottles. Vendors called out with rehearsed enthusiasm: “New bags, new year! Come choose the best for your children!”

Mekdes Girma, a kindergarten teacher earning 20,000 Br a month, threaded her way through the crowd with her daughters: a sixth-grader and a second-grader. Her husband, a school psychologist, brings home 30,000 Br. They live comfortably on paper, yet that comfort melts at Shola’s stalls. The younger girl froze in front of a pink backpack with a dangling toy and refused to move. Mekdes reasoned, coaxed and, finally, relented.

The bag cost 2,800 Br. For her elder daughter, she picked a simpler model for 2,000 Br, then added two fashionable lunch boxes. Before uniforms, the total had climbed to 24,000 Br. At another stand, she bought a sweater for 1,200 Br, trousers for the same and a shirt for 700 Br.

“My younger one already has spare clothes,” she said with a resigned laugh. “But the bag wasn’t negotiable.”

Backpack prices range from 1,200 Br to 3,000 Br, depending on the material and cartoon trends, according to Melaku Sisay, one of the more than 430,000 merchants registered by the Addis Abeba Trade Bureau across 10 sectors, who runs shops in Shola and Merkato. Lunch boxes sell for 1,200 Br and 1,850 Br; premium sets with multiple containers and twin bottles reach 3,800 Br.

“The same bag I sold for 1,050 Br two years ago now costs 3,000 Br,” he recalled.

He dropped the price from 200 Br to 300 Br for wholesale buyers, although his margins were tight. Nearby, another vendor, Birhan Admasu, echoed him. Last year, he sold bags between 800 Br and 1,500 Br. Last week, nothing was below 1,600 Br, while his lunch boxes fetched 1,850 Br to 3,800 Br.

“As demand spikes right before schools open, expect another hundred or two added,” he told Fortune.

Officials require prices to be posted in visible locations and pledge to take action against price gouging.

“We regulate to prevent unjustified increases,” Fisha Tibebu, the Bureau's deputy head, told Fortune. “Violators will face measures.”