It was very much that sort of party, and a rarity in those days because it was truly international. Even the high Amhara of the Imperial Court did not readily casually exchange formal invitations with foreigners, on the one hand because it might appear they were plotting, and on the other because the wealthy immigrant population in Addis Ababa was still very white and very proud, and it was their pleasure to make fun of us locals for serving the wrong wine with smoked salmon or wearing inappropriate shoes to a dance. They might be here to make money and to assist in the raising up of our country, but to them we were still new at this game of civilisation, and never mind that this place was a power in the world when London was a herd of pigs defecating in a muddy stream, and the island of Manhattan was home not to WASP financial magnates but to those matrilineal ur-Lenape whose stories are lost to smallpox and colonial steel.