Let's Get Cultured (A Trip To The National Museum)

In support of my continuing quest to learn all I can about Kenya (and just be a cultured person in general), I recently made a trip to the Nairobi National Museum.

The trip was made a little out of the ordinary by the presence of one of our clients, who was in town for two weeks.  He's based in the States, but he came to Nairobi to be face to face with the team for a bit and to help us conduct a workshop with several key stakeholders (more on that later).  Since he was here over a weekend, we thought a trip to the museum might be interesting.  We also invited one of our Kenyan based clients, so that we could all get to know each other better.

The museum is within the city limits (actually, it’s very near my apartment).  It’s small, but it does contain a lot of interesting items.  There are a few different sections of the museum focused on Kenyan animals & birds, archeology and history of man (including a 17 million-year old human skull), photography of people and animals, and a display that showed the history of Kenya.  Viewing the animals and birds was interesting, but I can definitely tell I’ve gotten a bit spoiled - I’m less impressed with all the stuffed dead animals now that I’ve seen them all live on safari!  The exhibitions on the Kenyan people were very interesting - they showed the different tools, expectations, clothing, and rituals that Kenyans experience as they move through the different phases of life (birth, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood).  I was struck by the contrasts between the Kenyans that are benefiting from all of the technology and social advances that have been made in recent years and the millions that still live in absolute poverty (earning less than $1000 USD a year).  The history display was very informative - it’s very interesting to learn about how colonization shaped Kenyan (and all African countries).  The influences of colonization are definitely still present today.

All in all, it was a very informative day - and our Kenyan client treated us to nyoma choma after.  Figured with all that learning, meat snacks were in order.  Just another great day in Nairobi!

One of the many statues outside the museum - the picture doesn't do it justice, but the stained glass portions of the installation caught the light and were really beautiful.

Entrance to the museum!

This is the skeleton of an elephant that used to live in Tsavo National Park.  The elephant died about 30 years ago, but he was special because of the size of his tusks.  He was actually afforded official protection by the government to prevent him from being poached!  He had a full time guard, all courtesy of the taxpayers of Kenya.  Seems crazy, but compared to how the money could have been spent, probably a pretty good use of funds!

Another of the statues outside of the museum entrance