Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania – In front of the television cameras, Jenna Bush listens silently to Tanzanian orphans who have been robbed of their family by AIDS. Across the continent in South Africa, twin sister Barbara quietly cares for children afflicted with the devastating disease.
First lady Laura Bush’s trip to Africa this week has brought her 23-year-old daughters back into the spotlight that they have shunned for most of their father’s presidency. The trip also found them dealing with it in different ways.
Jenna Bush has emerged as a prominent, if quiet, partner in her mother’s African goodwill tour. Accompanying the first lady as she left South Africa for Tanzania and Rwanda, Jenna has begun taking part in all her mother’s events.
It was a reversal from the early part of the trip, when both she and Barbara did everything they could to remain unseen. On Wednesday, Barbara remained behind in Cape Town, South Africa, where she has been working as a hospital volunteer.
Laura Bush said Jenna was comfortable with assuming a more public role – and wanted to demonstrate the commitment of her father’s administration to this impoverished continent.
Back in Washington, Jenna has followed her mother into the teaching profession and will continue this year working at an inner-city charter school.
“She thinks that her presence is … important to let American kids her age, young people her age – as well as African girls her age – know that her generation is also committed,” Bush said.
Indeed, Jenna appeared poised and relaxed as she stayed by her mother’s side, from an airport greeting by African dancers to a dinner at the presidential compound with Tanzanian first lady Anna Mkapa. She didn’t seem troubled that photographers angled to document nearly her every move.
At an AIDS prevention and treatment center, she handed out gifts of pens, postcards of her pets, bookmarks and notebooks to several children. The children told her and her mother how the charity is helping to support them and get them drug treatment.
