A similar stretcher was hanging under the ceiling of the office of the Uganda Wildlife Authority in Kibale National Park, a protected area in western Uganda that Muhumuza visited in 2025 to track chimpanzees. The item was familiar to the collector, who had seen such shoulder-held ambulances ferry malaria patients to and from his father’s clinic all those years ago in Rukungiri. Then, it was a symbol of death and dying. Now, in the rainforest, where the stretcher was used to carry unfit or injured tourists, it looked appealing in a different sort of way: as a work of art by a dying breed of craftsmen. Told they no longer made such items, he was not deterred. He tracked down one local man who was said to be able to make the stretcher. The rest is history: the piece Vincent Niwagaba made now hangs in Muhumuza’s office at the Weganda Gallery, as fascinating as it is rare.
