Wood carvings and handicraft pave the way along Wamunyu in Machakos county.
The small Kamba town has outlived its history as a major wood carving center in Kenya. Hundreds of tourists flock the town to buy these relics.
Wood carving is a Kamba tradition, with skills passed down along generations, and the people have turned it into a major income generating resource, even exporting these handicraft items for a handsome payout.
Curio shops used to line the highways of Kenya and you would hardly drive past one without spotting the odd tourist carefully examining a specimen, or haggling over the price with a sawdust covered carver.
The art supplied Ukambani with much needed foreign exchange, and instated itself as a mature self-sustaining industry. This however seems to be a losing battle.
Cheap imports from China have wreaked havoc on this once lucrative endeavor. The wood carvers themselves claim that tourists no longer want their products, preferring instead to buy plastic decorated items from the many shops around.
Wamunyu is a town slowly being strangled by the hold of the ever expanding cheap and disposable pickings available as imports in Kenya.
Wooden carvings once itemized every home, with miniature giraffes, zebra and the occasional elephant.
Makena, a major wood carver, says that the average home now holds a big flat screen TV, satellite dish decoder and stuffed toys.
Their livelihood is being threatened and they are trying to climb back from obscurity by expanding their art to include wooden carved TV stands and furniture.
They are urging people to buy local goods and to support local industries.