The Village Museum is unlike any museum I have ever visited. It is entirely outdoors, and it consists of about 20 different huts, representing traditional housing from all the different ethnic groups that can be found in Tanzania. Their motto is “Where you can see Tanzania in one day.” What’s cool about this museum is that it was built by Tanzanians for Tanzanians. You can venture in to each one of these homes and find artifacts of different tools, furniture, and jewelry used by the respective groups.

 

The museum is also used as a gathering place for rural Tanzanians who have moved to the city. Every Friday evening (and sometimes randomly throughout the week), traditional musicians and dancers entertain locals and tourists alike, helping to keep the culture alive in Dar es Salaam.

 

I was really interested to see what people live like in traditional Tanzania. For example, some of the homes had separate huts for the different wives. (The “senior wife” always got the best one, haha.) The Maasai mud huts had room inside the home to keep the cattle. There were huts for healing and huts for worshiping.

 

I wish I had written this post two months ago, so that all the wonderful things about this museum were fresh in my memory. Now I find myself scratching my head at some of these pictures, trying to remember what exactly they are. Luckily, I did take pictures of some of the descriptions.