Tag: michelle obama

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A weeklong trip to Africa with their mother has offered a rare look at Malia and Sasha Obama, sisters who are largely kept out of public view.

Malia, who enters her teenage years when she turns 13 next month, and Sasha, her 10-year-old sibling, have been two steps behind first lady Michelle Obama on practically all her stops in southern Africa this week. It has given both the American and African media a long look at the sisters whose private lives their parents have tried to keep private.

When they moved into the White House, the Obamas asked the news media to keep a respectful distance from the girls and refrain from photographing them at school, at weekend soccer games or at times when they weren’t with their parents. The White House even objected to coverage of their daughters at official events in the White House.

But there was no such restriction on Mrs. Obama’s good-will visit to Africa, which began Monday night when her plane, dubbed “Brightstar,” landed on a chilly night at Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa.

The girls joined their mother, as well as their grandmother and two cousins who are traveling with the first lady, on well-documented public outings to Nelson Mandela’s foundation and several museums.

They met living heroes of the movement against South Africa’s system of racial separation, including Mandela himself, who spent 27 years in prison for conspiring to abolish apartheid, and former Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, another elder of the movement. They met Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, and Antoinette Sithole, whose 13-year-old brother, Hector Pieterson, became a symbol of the fight against apartheid when he was gunned down by police in the black township of Soweto in June 1976 as students protested peacefully against the white government.

Malia and Sasha painted and played dancing games with children at several other stops. At a day-care center in the Johannesburg shantytown of Zandspruit, they and their mother took turns reading Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat” to a group of 3- and 6-year-olds. Many people were surprised to hear the girls’ voices; they almost never talk aloud in public. Both read their parts with gusto.

Mrs. Obama acknowledged that her daughters are on the world stage this week.

“It’s a balance, but our priority will always be protecting their privacy,” she told ABC News in an interview Thursday. “It won’t be often that you see them reading ‘The Cat in the Hat,’ but I think this was an important exception for them.”

Aides say that there’s been no change in policy toward media treatment of the girls and that Mrs. Obama remains determined to help them have as normal a childhood as possible.

Mrs. Obama often talks to young people about the importance of traveling and experiencing other parts of the world. Her daughters apparently are no exception.

Malia and Sasha have listened intently as researchers explained Mandela’s personal writings and as guides led them around museums that explored painful chapters in South Africa’s past as a country that separated its blacks and whites. And as if to say, “Stick with me,” they stayed close to two cousins who traveled with the family, Leslie and Avery Robinson, 15 and 19, respectively. The Robinsons live in Oregon with their father, Craig, who is Michelle’s brother. Unlike their cousins, the Robinson siblings aren’t growing up in a fishbowl.

Kristina Schake, Mrs. Obama’s communications director, said the first lady wanted her girls on the trip with her because she didn’t want them to miss out on a remarkable experience because of who they are. She also knew her daughters could handle a full week in the media glare because they are poised, polite and smart.

“This was a unique week,” Schake said.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

Darlene Superville can be reached at www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama will honor the legacy of Nelson Mandela and the struggle against apartheid during an official visit to southern Africa next week.

For her second solo international trip, the first lady has scheduled stops in South Africa and Botswana, two growing democracies, where she’ll continue her work encouraging young people to get involved in national affairs. She’ll also promote education, health and wellness.

The previously announced June 20-26 trip begins Monday in Johannesburg. Mrs. Obama will also stop in Pretoria and Cape Town in South Africa before moving on to Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. The trip ends with a private family safari at a South African game reserve before the return to Washington on June 27.

She will be accompanied by her daughters Malia and Sasha, her mother, Marian Robinson, and her niece and nephew, Leslie and Avery Robinson.

White House officials said Wednesday that the trip will help advance the administration’s agenda in Africa.

Mrs. Obama will spend most of her time in South Africa. She is scheduled to meet with Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, tour the Nelson Mandela Foundation, where his papers are stored, and visit the Apartheid Museum, which tells the story of the rise and fall of the now-abolished system of white-minority rule.

The first lady also plans a ferry ride to Robben Island, where Mandela spent 18 of the 27 years he was imprisoned for fighting apartheid.

Mrs. Obama will also meet with Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, the wife of South African President Jacob Zuma, and with Botswana’s president, Ian Khama.

Mandela was released from prison in February 1990 and was elected the country’s first black president in 1994 after apartheid ended. He left office in 1999 after one term and remains an outsized figure in South Africa although he has retired from public life.

A meeting between Mrs. Obama and Mandela was not on the agenda the White House released Wednesday and officials said one would largely depend on the state of his fragile health. The former president, who is 92, suffered an acute respiratory infection in late January that sent him to the hospital for 48 hours.

Ben Rhodes, a deputy White House national security adviser, said Mrs. Obama would “treasure any opportunity” to interact with Mandela.

Mrs. Obama’s schedule also includes a meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and key figure in the struggle against apartheid.