Rwanda: Land of a Thousand Hills
An African memoir by Rosamond Halsey Carr and Ann Howard Halsey
Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda is the memoir of American Rosamond Halsey Carr, who moved to Africa in 1949, and survived the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda
By Rosamond Halsey Carr and Ann Howard Halsey
Compass Press, 2000
ISBN 9781568958583
A New York Fashion Illustrator Moves to Belgian Congo in 1949
Rosamond Halsey wed big game hunter Kenneth Carr in 1949 and moved to what was then called the Belgian Congo to be with him. Though her love for him faded, and the couple divorced, Carr’s love for central Africa only continued to grow.
She remained in Rwanda, managing and eventually owning a flower plantation called Mugongo, where she employed workers of both Hutu and Tutsi heritage. In central Africa, the Hutu traditionally farmed, while the Tutsi managed livestock.
Civil war followed Congo’s independence from Belgium in 1962, and violence spilled over the border into neighboring Rwanda. Violence between the Hutu and Tutsi roiled mostly beneath the notice of western countries for decades, but troubles were not severe enough to harm working relations at Mugongo.
Roz Carr Experiences 1994’s Rwanda Genocide from Flantation Employing Hutu and Tutsi Workers
On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habiyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira (both Hutu) was shot down over the city of Kigali, and suddenly the violence that had simmered erupted into horrific slaughter.
Within three months, over 800,000 Rwandans died violent deaths. Many Tutsi workers were employed by Carr, and she allowed them to attempt to hide on Mugongo. However, later in April 1994, eight people were killed on Mugongo, clubbed to death as they tried to flee.
Carr was evacuated to the United States, and a few brave servants remained at Mugongo to care for her pets as best they could. But Carr couldn’t bear to be away from her home in Rwanda, war or no war. When she returned, her plantation was unrecognizable. Her house was destroyed, and her animals were starving, but her faithful cook Biriko, who himself was starving, had held on until Carr’s return.
A few weeks later, Carr was reunited with her beloved chauffeur Sembagare, a Hutu that had fled Tutsi retaliation to a refugee camp. The entire country’s infrastructure was in tatters. Everyone had to start their lives over from scratch.
Building an Orphanage
Later in 1994, with help from her niece and co-author Ann Halsey, Carr and Sembagare began building an orphanage, a sad necessity for dozens of local children who had seen their entire families murdered.
The orphanage opened in December 1994. For over a decade, Carr and her team had to relocate the orphanage multiple times due to aftershocks of ethnic violence from neighboring Congo. But in 2005, “Imbabazi,” the orphanage whose name means “a place where you will receive all the love and care a mother would give” was established in its permanent home, at Mugongo.
Having become “mother” to nearly 100 children at age 82, Carr applied her lifelong work ethic and her deep love for Rwanda toward saving those who survived the unspeakable horrors of the genocide. On September 26, 2006, at 94, Carr died peacefully at her beloved Mugongo home in Gisenyi, Rwanda. The orphanage continues to house Rwanda’s war orphans.
Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda is a near perfect introduction to the life, beauty, and politics of one of the most complex and beautiful places on the planet. While Lake Kivu, and Mts. Mikeno and Karisimbi offer up breathtaking natural surroundings, the natural wonders only serve to highlight the pain of a country surrounded by instability, yet continually trying to stand proud.
