Kisumu Museum

Kisumu Museum, has a series of outdoor pavilions. Some of the pavilions contain live animals. For example, one pavilion contains numerous aquaria with a wide variety of fish from Lake Victoria, along with explanatory posters. Another pavilion contains terrarium containing mambas, spitting cobras, puff adders and other venomous Kenyan snakes. Additionally, out of doors, the museum has a few additional exhibits, including a snake pit and a crocodile container.

Other pavilions show weaponry, jewellery, farm tools and other artifacts made by the various peoples of the Nyanza Province. Additionally, there are exhibits of stuffed animals, birds and fish. One pavilion houses the prehistoric TARA rock art, which was removed for its own protection to the museum after it was defaced by graffiti in its original location.

Impala Sanctuary

Kisumu is location of the Kisumu Impala Sanctuary. Measuring just 0.4 square miles (1.0 km2), the sanctuary is one of Kenya's smallest wildlife preserves. As its name suggests, it is home to a herd of impala. Some hippos, as well as many reptiles and birds are also present. Additionally, several caged baboons and leopards who faced difficulties of one sort or the other in the wild are held in cages there.

Hippo Point

Hippo Point is a 600 acres (240 ha) viewing area on Lake Victoria. Despite its name, it is better known as a viewing point for its unobstructed sunsets over the lake than for its occasional hippos.

Hippo point is near the village of Dunga, a few kilometres SW of the town. The village also has a fishing port and a camping site.

Kit Mikayi

Kit Mikayi, a large rock with three rocks on top, and is located off Kisumu Bondo Road towards Bondo. Kit-mikayi means “Stones of the first wife” or “First Wife Rocks” in Dholuo, the Luo language. It is a weeping rock; it is believed that Mikayi (literally, "the first wife") went up the hill to the stones when her husband took a second wife, and has been weeping ever since.

History

The "Legio Maria of African Church Mission" was founded by a former catechist of the Roman Catholic Church among the Luo people in Kisii Diocese of western Kenya. In 1962, Blasio Simeo Malkio Ondetto — known as "Baba Messiah" by Legio Maria followers and as the "Black Messiah" or "Black Jesus" by others — split from the Roman Catholic Church taking 90,000 adherents with him. His "second in command" was a woman known as “Mother Maria” and today revered as the true “Mother of God". Both were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960s. By 1980 the church numbered 248,000 adherents[1]. In the 21st century, total church membership has been estimated at over three million.

The Legio Maria headquarters and center is the village of Got Kwer, a community that the devout refer to as “Jerusalem”. This village of about 600 is approximately 15 km west of the southwestern Kenya town of Migori. Here is Simeo’s old family homestead and the tomb of the “Messiah” himself which is viewable as a long, cloth-covered plinth with numerous devotional objects scattered around. Both are lovingly maintained by the devout. Popes

Baba Messiah, although sometimes referred to as a pope, was technically considered a god. He has been followed by a succession of three popes to date:

* Pope Timothy Joseph Blasio Ahitler (1991-1998)
* Pope Maria Pius Lawrence Jairo Chiaji Adera (1998-2004)
* Pope Raphael Titus Otieno (2004 – date)
* Other sacred sites

A large rock formation on the Kisumu-Bondo road about 29 kilometers west of Kisumu — Kit-Mikayi — has become a popular local pilgrimage site for Legio Marians who come to the rock to pray and fast for several weeks at a time.