Thursday, 10 February 2011

A naive view of Victoria Falls.


Of all the so called 'amateur' art I've collected this painting is the one I hold most dear. With its simplicity and lack of true perspective it could be viewed as 'Naive Art' and it depicts of course the awe-inspiring Victoria Falls on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border.

I've been lucky enough to visit the falls twice during different seasons and in the picture below you can see how the falls got their name 'Mosi-O-Tunya' or 'the smoke that thunders'. Thunder it does.
I bought the painting at a market in nearby Livingstone. The artist was a cousin of the stall-holder and even though the custom in Zambia is to bargain in markets, I handed over the £5 or so he asked for the painting without hesitation. 

A very special rememberance of a very special place.


Speaking of special places, the waters were low enough to allow my friend and I to walk across the top of the falls and even take a swim in a pool right on the edge of the massive falls. We came across this guy relaxing in the shade of a precariously perched tree, rolling a fat one. We got chatting and he told us that he walked there from his village every day to while away the hours.

Oh what a life!

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