Encounters in Africa That Stay With President

Midway into his five-nation tour of Africa, President Bush visited a regional trade show in Gaborone, Botswana, where he mingled with vendors and eyed their wares: a kaleidoscope of fabrics, animal hide, faux ostrich eggs, glassware and candles.

The vendors all had benefited from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a 2001 law passed by Congress that promotes trade with Africa.

The encounter stayed with Bush, who that night told senior aides that it’s one thing to talk about global economics and trade but quite another to see for oneself the effects of policy on people’s lives.

For a man regarded by many as lacking in curiosity, someone who rarely gathers firsthand information abroad, Bush’s appreciation for fresh knowledge may come as a surprise. But it came through repeatedly on his trip to Africa, which concluded Saturday.

In Entebbe, Uganda, on Friday, Bush toured an AIDS clinic, where he met with two dozen Ugandans suffering from HIV and AIDS.

“You know, it’s one thing to hear about the ravages of AIDS or to read about them, another thing to see them firsthand,” Bush said.

Here in Abuja on Saturday, shortly before returning to Washington, Bush went to the National Hospital for a round-table discussion with medical personnel and a private meeting with mothers who have benefited from programs that help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

A senior administration official was unable to recall any previous occasion when Bush has visited an AIDS clinic, either in the U.S. or abroad. But the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bush has had contacts with people with HIV or AIDS, encounters that shaped his views toward combating the pandemic.

“It’s one of the reasons that he has become so passionate about this issue,” the official said.

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‘Stolen People’

One of Bush’s first stops in Africa was Goree Island, the transit point just off the coast of Senegal for millions of Africans en route to slavery in the New World.

Most visitors to the island, and particularly the Slave House, find it both a moving and a horrifying experience.

In the Bush entourage, none seemed more moved than national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, who grew up in segregated Birmingham, Ala.

“Goree Island was extraordinary to me.... You can almost imagine these stolen people suddenly arriving on the shore of this absolutely beautiful place and being put in these horrible cells where large numbers of them would die,” she said afterward.

“I still have a lump in my throat ... thinking which one of my ancestors might have actually gone through that gate on their way to the United States,” Rice said.

“You know, jumping the broom is still an African American tradition at marriage -- not that I have done that yet -- but, you know, it’s still considered a tradition. It comes out of slavery, and it was in some ways a defiant act because people weren’t really supposed to marry. And you just see the tremendous spirit and toughness of these people. And it just makes me extremely proud to be” descended from those people.

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‘A Broad Agenda’

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, the Bush administration’s other high-profile African American, also was on the trip.

Even though diplomacy is his portfolio, Powell left little doubt that Foggy Bottom has not dulled his political instincts.

When a reporter asked him to assess the political impact of Bush’s trip on black voters at home, Powell didn’t miss a beat.

“The purpose of the trip was not a political exercise and was not designed to influence the election of next year,” he replied. After recounting the trip’s many lofty and humanitarian goals, Powell concluded: “So this is a president with a broad agenda and he is executing that broad foreign policy agenda. And I hope that next year the American people will recognize that, admire it, appreciate it and respond accordingly.”

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‘A Style Thing’

Unlike his predecessor, Bill Clinton, who brought a planeload of guests, including many prominent African Americans, to Africa in 1998, Bush brought only his senior staff and one of his daughters, Barbara.

But no one should feel slighted.

“It’s a style thing,” said Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director.

“We use the time for the president on these trips for him to meet personally with the heads of government,” he said. “There are full agendas to be discussed [and] worked on on many of these stops.

“And we think that in every case so far that has been the best use of the president’s time and the time of our government. That’s not to say that we’d rule it out, doing it in the future.”