His hands are big and hard and stained with red, blue, yellow and green paint.
They make light work of the tough wire which he twists and bends into the shape of a wheel, his thick fingers blurring together because of the speed at which he works. He grabs a hammer and bangs a chisel. Chips of wood fly through the air.
Admire Munyuki?s in a wheelchair, but he?s never still, never at rest. ?I?ll sleep when I?m dead!? he says. ?Some people like to say I am ?confined? to this chair. But they don?t know that I am so free, I actually have wings! Can you see them? Look!? he shouts, casting his anvil aside and flapping his arms manically.
The eccentric Zimbabwean with the smile that never fades is surrounded by children. ?They keep me young!? he laughs. ?They make me strong; bless them.?
Munyuki sells his wares at public events throughout southern Africa. ?Wherever I think children will be, I go. I go everywhere except Zimbabwe,? he told VOA at a food festival in Cape Town. ?That is very sad, because it is my home country. But unfortunately economic opportunities are very limited there, even though I think the situation there is improving.?
Youngsters watch, wide eyed, as he carves yet another miniature tractor from a block of wood. With wire, he fashions rear and front axles and a steering wheel and column. He cuts wheels from a bald tire and screws them into his creation.
Munyuki passes his finished work to a boy, who beams in appreciation and rushes to test it on a nearby gravel path, a gaggle of screaming friends snapping at his heels.
Grinning, he said, ?I make the kids? dreams; I like it when they?re happy.?
Munyuki described himself as a ?recycler artist. I am proud because I have actually never bought anything that I use to make my toy tractors ? except sometimes I buy the paint from a man I know, but even that paint is extra paint from jobs he does?.?
He said he spends his life at places most people avoid ? on dumps and scrapheaps. ?That is where I get my riches,? Munyuki commented. ?Wherever I am, the first place I visit is a (city or town) scrapheap.?
Given recent events in the man?s life, one would be forgiven for suggesting that the scrapheap is exactly where his life has been consigned. Evicted from the tobacco farm he worked on and loved 10 years ago, and shortly thereafter diagnosed with a spinal condition that paralyzed him from the waist down, Munyuki?s position seemed a hopeless one. But he was at pains to insist that he never saw it that way.
?I just said to myself, ?When something hard comes into your life, you just have to accept it and move on.? If I did not have this attitude I would have ended my life a long time ago. I have learned to survive with what I have,? he said.
Munyuki acknowledged it?s difficult for him to do the physical work he does. ?It is very tough; it?s quite challenging. But a man has got to do what he?s got to do to survive, otherwise no one will give you bread on the table. You?ve got to do it (for yourself).?
He?s been independent ever since he can remember. ?I am proud to say that I have never begged for a coin in my life. When I see all these other lame and blind beggars from Zimbabwe on the streets, I feel sorry for them. I could not survive like that, by accepting handouts from others. I would not be able to live with myself,? he said.
To Admire Munyuki, the tractors he makes are much more than mere toys for children. They represent his hold onto a past he said is ?always? with him.
?I grew up on a tobacco farm in Marondera district (in eastern Zimbabwe). But (President Robert) Mugabe?s war veterans attacked and took that farm in 2002. They didn?t only kick the farmer off the land but also all his workers, also me,? he explained.
He added, ?As a child, I was always attracted to those big vehicles on the farm. I loved tractors especially. Nothing would make me happier than when my father or one of the other workers would give me a lift on a tractor. Later, I even learned to repair those tractors. Now I make them as toys, as I remember them from when I was young?.?
The land seizures which began in 2000 precipitated Zimbabwe?s decline. They also helped to destroy a once-thriving agriculture sector?and to extinguish Munyuki?s life as he knew it.
But where others would perhaps have seen only adversity, the Zimbabwean crafter said he saw opportunity. ?I was sad to stop my work on the farm. I loved that land,? he said. ?But I knew I had the skills to carry on in life. Those so-called war veterans, they tried to take my light away. But they only made another kind of fire inside me.?