A note on this domain

"(S)he that wanders a lot, learns a lot" is a saying of a Kenyan tribe. It concisely describes one of the main reasons for my love of travelling, and for studying here in Nairobi, Kenya.

Photos from National Museum

In one of the tribes, to become a man, a boy would go out to hunt birds for the headdress seen above.

Maria and Megan goofing off. When I stood there it said I weighed as much as a warthog. All three of us together made a zebra.

Disturbing map of Kenya covered in butterflies.

Sweeeeeeeeeeet trumpets!

Apes DNA are 96 percent similar to that of humans. I would challenge evolution doubters to come to this museum and look at the skulls all lined up in a chronological row. The evidence is overwhelming.

Only complete Proconsul skull ever found, one of the earliest apes. The possible shared ancestor for two families, the modern ape and the modern man.

 The black skull- proof that there were two types of early man occupying the planet at the same time.

Really cool, realistic models of life as an early (wo)man.

Proof that different types of humans lived together.

Warrior and ceremonial maps- gives me good visuals for 'Things Fall Apart.'

Poundin some beer with the most epic straws of all time.

 Warrior skirt, Swahili chair, and check out the tallest, most epic walking stick of all time.

I don't really understand these, but they're Maasai, stretched earlobe earrings.

These are more typical earlobe stretchers.

Anti Female Genital Mutilation movement embraces alternative forms of ceremony.

Lyre and trumpet.

Male circumcision rite mask.

Check out the elephant skeleton.

Awesommme kids toys- bow and arrow and amazing wooden bike.

Disgusting hall of stuffed birds.

Maria with Maasai man in gift shop who insisted upon dressing her up hahaha!

There was also some awesome modern art at the museum, but I don't have pictures of them, unfortunately.

The Cradle of Humanity

I've decided I'll begin posting daily happenings, then go back to review the weeks I missed.

Yesterday, we visited the National Museum of Kenya. It's about a fifty minute walk from our apartment, but we stopped for coffee at Sarit Centre on the way.

When we got there, we stopped for lunch at a lovely cafe, where I had coconut carrot ginger soup. The grounds of the museum are absolutely beautiful. We didn't get a chance to visit the garden, but I want to go again to see it.

(After the above experiment in photo uploading, which took absolutely forever, I think I'll try linking to blogspot or flickr for the rest.)
After visiting the Cairo Museum last summer, which made you want to cry it was in such disrepair, with some of the most important artifacts in human history unlabelled and unprotected, the National Museum of Kenya is delightfully well kempt.

The museum was divided into many sections, about tribal cultures, the environment, migration, politics, etc. However, the museum is famous for the most amazing section, the most important collection of early human fossils in the world, all found in Kenya, proving man's evolution from apes. Some were discovered by the Leakey's. It included the famous Turkana boy, the most complete early human skeleton ever found.

There are also a lot of disturbing preserved and stuffed animals, including an endless room of stuffed dead birds. That was especially disgusting: thousands of little dead things all collected in a single room.


Last night we went out to Gypsy's, the closest thing you get to a gay-friendly venue in Kenya. Lots of expats. We met up with Madison's two coworkers from Lea Toto, an approximately thirty-year-old couple from Spain, in Kenya for about 3 months. Lea Toto provides outreach services to abandoned and orphaned HIV+ children in Nairobi.

http://www.nyumbani.org/lea_need.htm

We enjoyed chatting with them for quite some time. We'd been talking pleasantly for about an hour when the man shared a disturbing experience they'd had about an hour before on their way to Gypsy's.

Right around the corner, he'd seen a man lying in the road. At first he thought the man must be drunk or crazy, but he went up to him and touched him and he was cold. It was clear he was very ill and dying. People around him said to leave the man. He told them someone should call an ambulance. They responded that the man was shot by the police.
He'd assumed the wetness on the man was water, but it had probably been blood. He went and talked to the guards at gypsy's, saying they should call an ambulance. They said the man was a thief, so the police shot him.

We were told at orientation to just let it go and let the person have our purse or wallet or necklace if it was grabbed from us. Most thieves aren't violent and have nothing again you, they just want the money. On the other hand, if you yell 'Thief!,' people may swarm and kill the person in a phenomenon called 'mob justice...' or, as I found last night, the police may kill him.

This was just about the most disturbing second-hand account I've heard so far in Nairobi. I've felt and feel safe here, but I'm constantly reminded, this is how the rest of the world, the majority of the world, lives. In they're daily lives, they're not safe. My experience here may be challenging at times, but it's nothing in comparison to what they are born into.