Culture in Kenya

This last weekend was our immersion into Kenyan culture, in two very different experiences.

On Saturday, we visited The Bomas of Kenya.  This is a project of the government of Kenya to preserve the traditional culture of the country.  It is only about a 20 minute drive from ANU, close to the mall we shop at each week.  We hadn't even heard of it until last week when I went online to find something in Nairobi to do.  There are two main parts to The Bomas.  We  began by touring about a dozen collections of traditional houses (bomas).  Each set of bomas was constructed in the traditional method of a different tribe that makes Kenya their home.  Here are a few of them:

Obviously not a tall tribe

The interior of this bomas had built-in seating

A few were quite colorful

Notice the layers of roofing 

In this village, there was a bomas for the 1st wife, . . .

one for the 2nd wife, . . .

and one for the 3rd wife.
Fortunately for me, I only need a 1st wife's hut :-)

This was the most unique.  Notice the lack of thatching.  This bomas was
built using the traditional methods of the Maasai tribe. 

This photo shows the arrangement of  a few of the bomas in one village

 After touring the villages, we went to a display of traditional tribal dances.  I tried to get photos, but my camera was not well equipped to handle the lighting.  However, the video feature worked much better:

Here is a second video, this time featuring the Maasai tribe.  We see Maasai around Nairobi frequently, since this area was traditionally their home.

So you can see that our Saturday was very interesting.  However, our Sunday excursion was at the opposite extreme of Kenyan culture.  One of the missionary couples invited Marilyn and I to go the the Nairobi Orchestra concert.  It was held in the auditorium of a private (British) high school.  The place was packed.  I did not take any pictures, thinking that it would probably not be acceptable.  But there were several camera flashes during the performance.  So here is a photo of the program cover.

As you can see, it was a very classical concert.  Of course, the Tchaikovsky piano concerto was my personal favorite.

All in all, this was about my favorite weekend in Kenya, so far.  I hope you have gotten a bit of the flavor of our adventure.