Um, I am in Ethiopia and Other Stories.

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. :)