City Glangne (24) lives in central Addis Ababa. She has a husband, three young children and 400 neighbours - in the same room.
Since April 4th, when a fire destroyed over 50 homes in the Kebele 43 district - perhaps the poorest area in one of Africa's poorest cities - the small village of people has made its home a hall of rotting floor-boards and corrugated metal walls and roofing.
There is no running water. Just one toilet is shared by all. During the days the heat is stifling, at night the cold almost numbing.
Privacy is perhaps the only thing these 400 people cannot share as daily, together, they sleep, eat, wash, cook and, in the words of City, "just sit".
"My husband is a daily labourer," she says quietly. "I have three children, 12, 5 and Lula," sitting by her "she is three".
"We have been here about a month, I think. I don't remember anything about the fire. We just survived, didn't save anything, just survived," she says, clutching Lula towards her.
About the size of a community hall in any small village in Ireland, this has its floor covered in blankets, each marking a family plot.
Plastic containers are stacked neatly along the perimeters of each, by cooking implements, next to cans of petrol sharing their space with washing basins and sleeping babies.
Some of the people offer carefully arranged piles of limes or red onions for sale. In one corner, a mother is breast-feeding a child. Across from her a man is squatting at a kerosene stove, apparently cooking.
In the air the odour of the fuel blends unpleasantly with that inevitably produced by humanity vying with humanity for room to sleep, eat, wash, cook and just sit.
It is thought the April fire may have been started by one of the ubiquitous kerosene stoves. The patch of scorched ground where the fire blazed for some four hours is just across the mud path from the hall children run about barefoot, the area strewn with rusting metal and shards of glass.
"It is a miracle no one was killed in the fire," says Mr Noel Wardick, urban and partnerships programmes co-ordinator with Concern Ethiopia. He added that despite the horrendous conditions in which City and her family now live, "they are probably a lot better off than if this hall had not been made available by the local authorities".
As well as its relief work in the famine threatened areas of the country, Concern and NGOs like it are involved in on-going projects in the urban centres such as Addis Ababa. As Mr Wardick says, even in times of plenty, as regards the harvest, poverty in the capital is as long-term as it is endemic.
Since the 1991 revolution the city has experienced a phenomenal increases in population, hastened by the inward migration of some one million. About three million now put a considerable strain on its few resources.
In this, the Kebele 43 district, Concern had been in the process of assessing the area for its urban development programme when the fire broke out.
Mr Wardick explains that in the immediate aftermath, Concern provided 6 kg of food per person in the hall for the month and is working with the local authorities in drawing up plans to rebuild the houses. He is pessimistic, however, that this will happen in the near future.
Gesturing about her current home, City shows the possessions she and her husband have managed to accumulate over the past month. Two mattresses, a blanket, a basin and cooking pot furnish the residence.
"It is very difficult," she nods shyly, as always half-looking towards the ground. "We get some food once a day. I tried to sell potatoes and onions, but the police would not let me work. We can get water and some washing from family."
Asked whether she knows what will happen to her family, she says she does not.
Asked what she would like to happen, she says she would like to get a job "and get us away - any job. But I did not get education, so I cannot choose. I would like my children to learn and get wealth."
Her five-year-old is attending a local school.
She says she is very angry sometimes with the government. "It has done nothing for us. We get no assistance. But, some days are happy," she adds, almost shrugging.
"Some days I am not because we were living on our own and we have lost that. But we have no alternative."