3. The lightbulb from hell

THE COMFORTS surrounding Palace life were quickly dismissed for the sharp realities of Akaki Prison, located near the supposed monument to tolerance and justice, the Organization of African Unity.
It was ironic that African heads of state would visit Addis Ababa on a regular basis in the late 1970s and 1980s, and completely ignore the plight of Haile Selassie's Court, within eyesight of the OAU.
With systematic brainwashing techniques, the Emperor's accomplishments and even his very existence were being eradicated. Monuments and plaques to his life were ripped away and replaced by socialist slogans.
In the crumbling, tin-roofed stucco buildings, which housed the End of the World, Haile Selassie's family was separated by a wall from more than a hundred women.
Dressed in black because most were in mourning for family members, who had been executed, the princesses existed in the damp, nine-by-12-foot cell, sleeping on mattresses, with its one window with no glass and a single door.
Actually, it was a makeshift storage room, next to the prison's ill-equipped clinic without any proper washroom facilities and no shower.
However, the most annoying intrusion into their previously-insulated lifestyle was a small lightbulb.
It had to be on 24 hours a day.
It was on for 14 years.
It was another form of torture.