The Buffalo and the Elephant

I bought these two wood carvings in Mombasa during the later years when I spent most of my time away at school in England, so between about 1958 and 1961. At the time, the idea of carvings to hang on the wall was a new one to the Kamba people who made them.

The carvers, who spent their time between serving customers sitting on the ground making more carvings, sold their wares from stalls set up in the central reservations along two of the main roads in Mombasa, Salim Road and Kilindini Road. Picture shows my brother Richard when he was in Mombasa in 1964.

Part of the fun of buying a carving was that one was expected to haggle. It was a fine art at which some people were particularly good. I confess I wasn't, always feeling that I was driving the price down for people who needed the money. So sometimes I would ask a friend who was better than me, and perhaps a little more ruthless, to do the bartering for me.

Like all these mementoes, the two little carvings have been dragged round the world with me. They're seen here in our house in Kingston, Jamaica, in the years between 1973 and 1975.