Making way for Mrs. Bush

The US's First Lady spent part of yesterday morning at the clinic where I work during her quick visit to Port-au-Prince (It appears she flew on to Mexico for the afternoon). Standing to the left of her in the AP photo is the Director General of the clinic Dr. Deschamps. Reuters posted several photos from the visit. You can actually catch a little glimpse of some of the staff and patients (and a lot of the first lady).

I seem to be making a habit of not being around when Laura visits my place of work. In 2005 she and her daughter Jenna visited one of World Relief's church partner sites in Rwanda. One of my friends is sitting next to her in the White House photo release.

I must confess I was kind of glad not to be there yesterday. The clinic gets quite a number of US Congress people as well as occasional high level directors of UN agencies, foundations, corporations, etc. coming through. They tend to come in waves. There was one week towards the end of last year where we didn't go a single day without a black Suburban full of security agents sitting with their engines (and air conditioning) running in the courtyard - ready to whisk their high profile charges away at a moment's notice.

High-level hospitality takes a lot of time and effort from the clinic's leadership and administrative staff. Work tends to come to an artificial sort of standstill as you have to be on call in just the right place at just the right time, looking busy, in case they tour past your work space. (Not that we aren't usually busy but you have to be extra busy looking at exactly the right moment). It's a little awkward to have to slip nervously past men in dark sunglasses toting guns to get to the photocopier - that is if you are allowed to walk around the place at all. I have no idea what the patients think about all of the fuss.

There are some definite advantages to putting our best face forward for such guests. In the days leading up to their arrival, walls are freshly painted and signs are posted on office doors - which are improvements we get to enjoy for the longer term. It's hard to say just how much financial and other support comes in direct response to such visits, but if giving a congressperson from rural Oklahoma a tour of the clinics means global AIDS funding will continue for the next 4 or maybe even 8 years, it is probably time well spent.

While were on the topic of the Bush family's diplomatic globetreking, check out this Time.com article written by Brit pop star turned celebrity activist Bob Geldof about this Africa tour with the US President. His take on GWB's mostly positive but largely unrecognized legacy in Africa is refreshing - particularly because he openly acknowledges that he doesn't support Mr. Bush's policies for US involvement elsewhere in the world.