Thread by @gentlemanwalkin

Tribute in photos: Queen Rosalie Gicianda

Her kindness, beauty and intelligence

Rosalie Gicanda and Mutara Rudahigwa got married religiously on 18 January 1942, during a ceremony celebrated in the Kabgayi basilica. She later joined her husband at the royal palace in Rukari. The two formed a close couple.

Queen Gicanda discreetly advises her husband and makes it a point of honour to distance herself from the exercise of power. She was always by her husband’s side at all major events in the country and accompanied him on trips abroad in 1955 and 1958.

At the same time, she completed her intellectual and religious training with the Benebikira Sisters of Nyanza. Saddened by the death of her husband, Rosalie Gicanda was inconsolable.

On 1st April 1964, Rosalie Gicanda was expelled from the royal palace of Rukari.

In order to survive, she decided to sell milk and very quickly her product became a success with the Butareans, who were attracted by its delicious taste. Always open, Gicanda’s house also became a haven for the destitute, the persecuted, travellers and other needy.

The population of Butare and soon the whole country appreciated her for her dignity, her piety, her generosity, her hospitality, her affability, her humour, her friendliness, her open-mindedness, her beauty, her uprightness and above all her humility.

Queen Gicanda's hair is styled by a young servant. This photograph was taken in 1955 in Brussels, during a visit to Belgium by the Rwandan royal couple.

Usumbura Airport (Bujumbura), 1958.
The royal families of Rwanda and Burundi about to board a Sabena plane, leaving for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair.

Gicanda and husband, King Mutara III Rudahigwa

@PaulKagame is her nephew (Kagame’s maternal grandfather, Kanamugire, is the old brother of Gatsinzi, Gicanda’s father; Kagame’s mother, Asteria Bisinda, is Kanamugire’s daughter and therefore Gicanda’s cousin).
We will look at their amazing lives, next on readrwanda.com