Hey Everybody-
Sorry for the prolonged absence. First I was on safari for three days and when I returned from safari I had an email from Steve saying to hop a plane and meet him in Ethiopia the next day. So here I am. However, upon arrival I didn't feel real well, but figured that I would be fine. I was photographing manuscripts for about an hour the next day and then was just wiped out and had to go home. We repeated this same drill for a few more days until on Friday I went to the hospital and they figured out that I had an upper resperatory infection. So I have been dosing up on antibiotics and have been feeling a lot better other than getting cabin fever from being in the apartment for nearly a week. (Although if you want to feel like the biggest jerk ever, be a white person at an Ethiopian hospital. You are surrounded by people with awful looking diseases and in tons of pain and you are just walked to the front of the line and seen by the best doctors. It is very humbling and definately eye-opening).
As far as my living arrangements in Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia), they are interesting. The power and water go out every other day or so, but typically come back on in the late evening. We are on the fifth floor, so I am getting my fair share of exercise, and the busy street below is always hoping. The street culture in Addis is always going. There are constantly crowds of people on the streets. Many are beggars, which has been tough for me. I am seeing some of the most wretched lives around me, but there are too many to help all of them. It is pretty overwhelming and leaves me not wanting to be out too much at all.
As far as what I am doing, I am photographing manuscripts for the Institute of Ethiopian Studies. This is about the second most important collection in the world. These are the oldest, rarest, and most beautiful manuscripts I have seen. The paintings in them are incredible. The goal is to get the collection on the road to digitized (they have about 1800 codices!!). If we can get 100 shot it will be a good week :). Well, that is about all for now. Keep me in your thoughts if you remember as I am trying to kick this cold so that I can be at full speed. I hope that you are all well.
~Jeremy
P.S. Safari was incredible and I will put up a safari post when I get somewhere that has bandwidth to post pictures, because why read a safari blog with no photos? no fun at all. Plus I am pretty sure all of Addis shares one 28k modem... internet is a little slow. :)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
A Bit of Disappointment or Refined Expectations
Well as many of you know I had dreams of hundreds of manuscripts to shoot once I arrived in Nairobi. My hopes were that dealers would be lining up to have us look through our manuscripts. These dreams were egged on during my first day here when the two dealers from the Masai market brought 5 manuscripts for us to shoot. Well yesterday we went to another Masai market on the other end of town (more on that later) and the first vendor I spoke to said "oh yes, I have Ethiopian manuscripts" and went into the back room to get them. Lo and behold he did have 4 manuscripts with him... however they looked vaguely familiar. They were the SAME STINKIN' MANUSCRIPTS!!! As it seems the Masai markets have one main supplier of manuscripts (Charles, the dealer we met the first day) and they just pass around the codices until they get sold... So this has really changed our approach. The days of stacks of manuscripts that we had been told about are apparently gone, the manuscripts have gotten too rare.
Now comes a necessary change of approach. When I return on Monday from safari I am going to start contacting curio shops and book dealers (if such a thing exist here, I'm not sure) and try and locate more manuscripts. I will also be going to speak with the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches here in Nairobi to see if they have any manuscripts and if they might be interested. Hopefully this work will turn up a few more manuscripts. If it doesn't, then we know the answer to the Nairobi pilot project question: what is the state of the market in Nairobi? And that answer will be that it has dried up. As you can imagine it was a bit of a disappointing day, but offered some clarity to the project.
Back to the market experience. First we rented a car and had one of the guys my age from the church drive us. The problems began with it being a manual... imagine driving through Seattle in a manual (hard enough) but with speed bumps the size of a baby blue whale and potholes deeper than a bathtub. We were on backroads, so there were no lane dividers... everyone was just driving wherever. Now some of you who have traveled may be thinking that I just am not used to traffic outside the states. Keep in mind that I have been in a bus flipping a U-turn on a freeway in Ukraine, ridden cross country in Romania, and travelled on the wrong side of the road in both Australia and New Zealand... this was scary than any of that! We actually got high centered on one of the before mentioned speed bumps and had to get out and push it off. All the while a huge truck was honking and trying to pass us on a one lane road. I got done and felt like I needed a whole box of Nicorette gum just to calm me down. While at the market we were the target of every barker in the place. There is no wandering around and looking, you (and by you I mean big white American that sticks out badly in a crowd) are being hollered at, hand shook, back slapped, asked where you are from. They would even say sejambo to you as you walked by. This is the equivalent of "Hello to you too" as if implying that you had started the conversation and needed to start and pay exorbitant prices. It was an exhausting experience. I don't mean to complain in this blog, sorry if it sounds that way, I just wanted to share what yesterday held. I know, I know... "shut up Jeremy, you are in freaking Africa!" ;)
All that being said I am heading on safari in an hour. It should be amazing and there will be pictures to follow. Take care and I will write again when I can.
~Jeremy
Now comes a necessary change of approach. When I return on Monday from safari I am going to start contacting curio shops and book dealers (if such a thing exist here, I'm not sure) and try and locate more manuscripts. I will also be going to speak with the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches here in Nairobi to see if they have any manuscripts and if they might be interested. Hopefully this work will turn up a few more manuscripts. If it doesn't, then we know the answer to the Nairobi pilot project question: what is the state of the market in Nairobi? And that answer will be that it has dried up. As you can imagine it was a bit of a disappointing day, but offered some clarity to the project.
Back to the market experience. First we rented a car and had one of the guys my age from the church drive us. The problems began with it being a manual... imagine driving through Seattle in a manual (hard enough) but with speed bumps the size of a baby blue whale and potholes deeper than a bathtub. We were on backroads, so there were no lane dividers... everyone was just driving wherever. Now some of you who have traveled may be thinking that I just am not used to traffic outside the states. Keep in mind that I have been in a bus flipping a U-turn on a freeway in Ukraine, ridden cross country in Romania, and travelled on the wrong side of the road in both Australia and New Zealand... this was scary than any of that! We actually got high centered on one of the before mentioned speed bumps and had to get out and push it off. All the while a huge truck was honking and trying to pass us on a one lane road. I got done and felt like I needed a whole box of Nicorette gum just to calm me down. While at the market we were the target of every barker in the place. There is no wandering around and looking, you (and by you I mean big white American that sticks out badly in a crowd) are being hollered at, hand shook, back slapped, asked where you are from. They would even say sejambo to you as you walked by. This is the equivalent of "Hello to you too" as if implying that you had started the conversation and needed to start and pay exorbitant prices. It was an exhausting experience. I don't mean to complain in this blog, sorry if it sounds that way, I just wanted to share what yesterday held. I know, I know... "shut up Jeremy, you are in freaking Africa!" ;)
All that being said I am heading on safari in an hour. It should be amazing and there will be pictures to follow. Take care and I will write again when I can.
~Jeremy
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
One Day Down
Hey Everybody-
Well yesterday we had a very enjoyable plan of relaxing, maybe seeing the city, and overall adjusting to the time difference. So... about 1:30 the first dealers showed up. They brought 5 manuscripts with them. That meant that it was time to try my new set-up. Of course the lightbulbs that I worked so hard to keep safe on the trip to Nairobi starting popping and overall didn't work. This meant that we just went and bought some new bulbs here in Nairobi. Figures ;). Overall, the day went very well. We got these 5 manuscripts digitized and the photos look great. The hospitality here continues to just be incredible. Pastor Patrick and his family are incredibly kind and we have been enjoying eating breakfast and dinner with them as well as watching soccer (Sherwood and Chad, I am very grateful for the soccer tutorial that you gave me prior to my leaving). Jackie and Simon are going to be helping us. They are both great workers and I am excited to work with them. That about covers how yesterday went. Today we are going to the Kenya Museum and checking out a little more of the city and then on Friday another dealer will be coming by. I hope that you are all well.
~Jeremy
P.S. On Saturday I will be going on my safari :)
Well yesterday we had a very enjoyable plan of relaxing, maybe seeing the city, and overall adjusting to the time difference. So... about 1:30 the first dealers showed up. They brought 5 manuscripts with them. That meant that it was time to try my new set-up. Of course the lightbulbs that I worked so hard to keep safe on the trip to Nairobi starting popping and overall didn't work. This meant that we just went and bought some new bulbs here in Nairobi. Figures ;). Overall, the day went very well. We got these 5 manuscripts digitized and the photos look great. The hospitality here continues to just be incredible. Pastor Patrick and his family are incredibly kind and we have been enjoying eating breakfast and dinner with them as well as watching soccer (Sherwood and Chad, I am very grateful for the soccer tutorial that you gave me prior to my leaving). Jackie and Simon are going to be helping us. They are both great workers and I am excited to work with them. That about covers how yesterday went. Today we are going to the Kenya Museum and checking out a little more of the city and then on Friday another dealer will be coming by. I hope that you are all well.
~Jeremy
P.S. On Saturday I will be going on my safari :)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
I Made It
Well, after 20 hours on planes (including one hour sitting on the tarmac in an airplane whose ac didn't work unless the engines were running while maintenance had to come back because they forgot to initial the safety report) I am now in Nairobi. Pastor Patrick and his family are very kind and set us up with a very nice room with a shared kitchen and laundry (yeah! no doing laundry by hand like in Romania). I just wanted to let you all know that I made it and a special thank you to Heather for driving me to the airport at such an unpleasant hour :)
~Jeremy
~Jeremy
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Getting Ready to Go
All my bags are packed
I'm ready to go
I'm standin here outside your door ~John Denver
Well, I think that I am about ready to take this show on the road. For those of you who I haven't talked to for a while (my bad) I am heading to Nairobi tomorrow and will be there until July 9th. I will be working with Dr. Delamarter to digitize and catalogue Ethiopian manuscripts in the hands of street vendors. I think I remembered the essentials, surely packed too many peripherals, and pray to all things holy that I don't forget anything that cannot be lived without. For those who enjoy such details, here's my flights for tomorrow and the next day (stinkin' long flights):
PDX to Detroit 8:30am-3:48 pm (this is where I will meet up with Dr. Delamarter
Detroit to Amsterdam 5:20 pm-7:00 am
Amsterdam to Nairobi 10:50 am-7:40 pm
For those who are interested I will be trying to update this regularly and keep you posted on what I am up to. I hope that you all are well and please humor me, this is the first blog that I have ever messed around with.
Jeremy
I'm ready to go
I'm standin here outside your door ~John Denver
Well, I think that I am about ready to take this show on the road. For those of you who I haven't talked to for a while (my bad) I am heading to Nairobi tomorrow and will be there until July 9th. I will be working with Dr. Delamarter to digitize and catalogue Ethiopian manuscripts in the hands of street vendors. I think I remembered the essentials, surely packed too many peripherals, and pray to all things holy that I don't forget anything that cannot be lived without. For those who enjoy such details, here's my flights for tomorrow and the next day (stinkin' long flights):
PDX to Detroit 8:30am-3:48 pm (this is where I will meet up with Dr. Delamarter
Detroit to Amsterdam 5:20 pm-7:00 am
Amsterdam to Nairobi 10:50 am-7:40 pm
For those who are interested I will be trying to update this regularly and keep you posted on what I am up to. I hope that you all are well and please humor me, this is the first blog that I have ever messed around with.
Jeremy
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