Bomas!

August 19, 2012

Today Kyla and I went to Bomas of Kenya, a cultural heritage museum in the suburbs of Nairobi. After a two-hour bus ride that should have taken 40 minutes, we arrived to a nugget of paradise (in terms of museums). The facility is mostly outdoors and when you first enter, there is a gigantic playground with kids running all over and families picnicking. The grounds are only 25KSH for the entire day (around 30 cents) , so it is a great deal for parents.

One of the main attractions is a series of traditional villages from across all of Kenya. As you wind through a forest path, you come across about 20 different villages (just huts, no people). Though I'd lived in a village before and seen many on the roads, it is interesting to see them next to each other because you can recognize the subtle differences between them. For example, the roofs were almost always made out of straw, but the way that the villages applied the straw was vary. Some layered them in particular patterns, some covered all the way down the walls, some had overhangs, some mixed in more dirt, etc. The huts themselves were also quite diverse. The Kisiis, for example, had extensive walls and separate rooms within the hut. The Taita, on the other hand, had really small open huts with no division of space. We took many pictures but unfortunately I cannot transfer them onto the computer until I get back to London (you can look here for a link to their website, though!).

Seeing the variation across tribes made me wonder how often the similarities were due to pure evolution or knowledge transfer among the different people. There were clearly commonalities that all tribes included, such as granaries, boys huts (but not girls huts), and the fact that ALL of them were round (except the Maasai, though the ones in Bomas were unlike any I've ever seen in Kenya).

The admission price also included a 2-hour traditional drum and dance show. My favorite!!!! The first thing that struck me was how similar some of the movements are to West African dance.Unsurprising, but still interesting since they are across the continent from each other. I also noticed how smart the missionaries were in Kenya, because the Christian gospel music that blasts from most public transport and plays incessantly on the TV in our apartment was almost exactly the same as the traditional music, just with Christian and English words attached. They definitely did their homework on that one and came out on top.

The dances were great and it reinforced my awe at African women's ability to disconnect their torso from their hips and rapidly move the lower half of their body while the top stays perfectly still.  I do not know how they do it!

Overall we had a fun day. Afterward, we ate dinner at a sports bar across the street and caught the final game of the Kenyan Premier League. Not quite as riveting as the British Premier League, still entertaining. Within the first seven minutes one team had five fouls and the other had three. Nice job :)

Fun Things:

-When the others in our apartment watch television, they will pass up cartoons, movies, Nigerian dramas, and the news to put on FamilyTV: Keeping Jesus on the Airwaves. Though I'm ok with Jesus, sometimes the Christian music videos get a little much for me.

-MagicAroni, the Kenyan mac and cheese, is actually from Miami, FL! I think I've found more "Made in USA" products in Kenya than I can find in America!

-Saturday, Kyla and I went to see the movie Brave in the theater. I loved the music and the storyline was pretty girl-empowering for a Disney movie.

-A fence company in Kenya: Elefence. Hahaha! I want to make one!