The highlight of the
Nairobi Museum was Ahmed - a gigantic African bull elephant.
Or to be more explicit his skeleton which held court in the central hall and stood 15ft at the shoulder. His claim to fame was his enormous curving tusks which seven foot long. They were things of beauty – like great curls of yellow ivory. Ahmed is seen as special in Kenya. He was a denizen of Marsabit National Park and lived to be eighty. He roamed the mountain national park with a fortune of ivory on his person. The seventies were a time of increased poaching which pushed the elephants in Kenya to the brink of extinction. Letters of concern were sent to President Kenyatta and he arranged for Ahmed to have 24 hr protection with an armed escort. He lasted to 1974 when the last of his teeth wore out and he died of starvation.
It was this little tale that enraptured me at the Kenyan National museum. As Kenya is such a relatively new country alot of the exhibits were about its abundant natural history which I really enjoyed. The museum is worth a couple of hours of your time. It’s to the north of the centre on Museum Hill and costs about 300 schillings by taxi from any Nairobi hotel. It’s just undergone a multi-million schilling refurbishment and the dusty old seventies building looks bran new. But inside still has a feel of a ‘Victorian Collector’ with stuffed buffalo heads on the wall.
Or to be more explicit his skeleton which held court in the central hall and stood 15ft at the shoulder. His claim to fame was his enormous curving tusks which seven foot long. They were things of beauty – like great curls of yellow ivory. Ahmed is seen as special in Kenya. He was a denizen of Marsabit National Park and lived to be eighty. He roamed the mountain national park with a fortune of ivory on his person. The seventies were a time of increased poaching which pushed the elephants in Kenya to the brink of extinction. Letters of concern were sent to President Kenyatta and he arranged for Ahmed to have 24 hr protection with an armed escort. He lasted to 1974 when the last of his teeth wore out and he died of starvation.
It was this little tale that enraptured me at the Kenyan National museum. As Kenya is such a relatively new country alot of the exhibits were about its abundant natural history which I really enjoyed. The museum is worth a couple of hours of your time. It’s to the north of the centre on Museum Hill and costs about 300 schillings by taxi from any Nairobi hotel. It’s just undergone a multi-million schilling refurbishment and the dusty old seventies building looks bran new. But inside still has a feel of a ‘Victorian Collector’ with stuffed buffalo heads on the wall.
800 schillings gets you entrance and one of East Africa’s major draw are the remnants of hominids or early man. You don’t have to know your Homo erectus from your Australopithecus as it is a user friendly exhibit. Timelines that are almost so old as to be unbelievable (15 million years ago) put things into context and there were various skulls on display of old men, infants and young mothers. What I found interesting was the way mankind evolved – those who developed colour eyesight lived longer because they could tell the better fruit to eat, those with better grips did better than those who didn’t.
If the hominids were a creationist’s nightmare then the central rooms were a taxidermist’s heaven. Every single animal was stuffed and on display – with the big impressive ones having centre stage. I liked it because I could get up close to a Cape buffalo without being gored. And there was a wonderful set of scales which told you which animal you resembled in weight. I was a warthog – I’m not sure if that is a compliment. Much heavier than a cheetah or Impala but lighter than a zebra or Eland – I suppose that is some consolation.
The rest of the museum was made up of photographic exhibits that concentrated on Kenya’s wildlife – it consisted of huge black and white photos of lions, giraffes, wildebeests, aardvarks, bat-eared foxes etc from the many national parks. The most interesting exhibit was of 21st Century Kenya. There were National Geographic type photos of businessmen in Nairobi, a day at the races, street children huddling together, vendors selling puppies to motorists and Maasai manhood ceremonies.
It was easily the most interesting and affecting thing in the museum.
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