The Sex Museum

The Sex Museum

I visited the Sex Museum in Amsterdam.

It is positioned as the Venus temple and the world’s first and oldest sex museum. The museum is hard to miss. It is located on Damrak street, in the heart of Amsterdam about 100 metres from the Dam square, normally filled with tourists and pigeons and a 6 minute walk to the centre of the red light district. The Sex museum pops out like a flasher on a street  that is dominated by the mundane sight of supermarkets, tour operators, eateries souvenir and forex shops.

This is typical Amsterdam where sex work is decriminalised and has earned respectability as legitimate work. 

During the regular Corona press conferences to announce new restrictions and regulations, sex workers enjoyed legal recognition. I watched the news with a mix of amazement and amusement as sex workers held their own in the recurring anti-lockdown protests and presented their counter proposals of how to handle their corona hygiene protocols. For most of 2021, one could visit a brothel, while museums and cultural theatres remained closed. 

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A Meditation For Winter

A Meditation For Winter

I am wondering what to teach my children about winter. Beyond telling them that it is a cold weather season that black people don’t like. I don’t want them to be like my former self, afraid of the cold.

I was raised in a country dissected almost equally by the equator. In Kenya, we experience blue skies throughout the day and feel the sun’s warmth all year. You don’t appreciate this privilege until you move to the Northern hemisphere where talking about the weather becomes the daily conversation starter.  

From a young age, I associated cold weather with illness. I was pronouncing the word pneumonia long before I could spell it. 

“Don’t go out in cold weather, you will catch pneumonia”, my mother warned. 

Kenyan mothers fear the cold and every time they feel a chill, the children must wear an extra jacket. 

People born in the tropics develop a sunny disposition and it becomes one of the first things you begin to lose when living in cold countries. Against your strongest instincts, your behaviour gets regulated by the seasons, dull and closed in winter, warm and bubbly in summer. 

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Me, I love Nairobi

Me, I love Nairobi

The first thing you need to adapt to in this new country is the weather. Amsterdam has a maritime climate, which means you can have four seasons in a single day. On this particular mid morning in spring, the weather transformed from a moderately sunny day to a wet one in less than an hour and I decided to call an Uber to drop my daughter off at the day-care centre about 6kms away. 

The grey Skoda Octavia arrived promptly and we jumped into the back seat. There was a clear safety screen that has become a compulsory feature in Ubers in the wake of Covid-19 to protect drivers from sneezing passengers. I was happy that my Uber driver was a black man and we struck up a quick rapport. 

One of the many fascinating experiences as a new resident in Amsterdam has been meeting an African diaspora who identify as black and European. The driver was an affable young man. I asked him where he was from? 

“I was born here but my parents are from Suriname”. 

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The African Tourist

The African Tourist

It was the time before corona. 

Jamaa, a regional technology sales leader, travelled to Europe from Nairobi to report to the head office in Stockholm. While on these annual trips, he never ventured on his own beyond the confines of the head offices or hotel. His spirit of adventure was limited to packaged city tours buses. He concluded that he could only handle Europe in small doses and usually after a week, he would be eager to return to the familiarity of Nairobi. 

But after a generous company bonus, he decided to do something selfish, urged on by a senior executive who subtly reminded him to prioritise his mental health. 

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Nairobi, walking down memory lane

Nairobi, walking down memory lane

Every Nairobian has a part of the city instrumental in crafting their identity. A place where they truly came to appreciate the essence of Nairobi and found belonging. For most Nairobians, it is the neighbourhood they grew up in but I found my inspiration elsewhere.

My favourite part of the city is ensconced in the area around the University of Nairobi’s Main campus. From Uhuru Highway onto the University Way, down Muindi Mbingu Street, connecting the grid to Kenyatta Avenue and all the way around to the Arboretum Forest and back. It is packed with endless memories and makes a fascinating treasure trove for history lovers. I was in the University for a four year pursuing a Bachelor degree in Anthropology and spent a good deal of time crisscrossing this part of the city. My daily commute cut across Nairobi University main grounds, past the fountain ‘of Knowledge’ on the same path that Senator Barack Obama walked on his way to address students about a hopeful future at Taifa Hall in 2006 when it seemed ludicrous that he would be elected as the first black President of the US.

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