The boy in the blue shirt is named Issai. He is 9 years old, and lives in a small village in the hills of Tanzania about 30 miles north of Dar es Salaam, where President Bush is visiting.

I met Issai today on a trip to his village with Jon Halverson, who is the point man in Tanzania for a government agency called the U.S. African Development Foundation.

We in the press corps had some time today before President Bush arrived in the evening, and so I wanted to spend some time outside the security bubble that envelops us on these trips, seeing real Tanzanians, but also talking to Jon about economic development in Africa.

Jon told me plenty about Africa's economic outlook and the potential emergence of a middle class, and I plan to write about that on this trip. But our conversations took place over the course of a few hours that were much more interesting and powerful than I could have imagined.

I tagged along with Jon today to Issai's village, where Jon teaches a very informal soccer clinic every two weeks. Mr. Halverson knows the village pastor, William, because William is the janitor at the international school that Jon's children attend.

William is a dynamic leader and personality, and Jon is helping William work towards obtaining a well so that the village can have fresh water, as well as other small development projects.

Water is such a precious resource for poor Tanzanians, most of whom live on about $1 a day. This lesson was drilled home to me by Issai. During our time in his village, I was standing in the middle of several children, and Issai curiously fingered the water bottle in the side pocket of my cargo pants.

There was about one normal sip of water in the bottle. When Issai took an interest in it, I quickly gave it to him. A few minutes later, I saw Issai unscrew the bottle cap and raise the bottle to his lips. But instead of taking a full sip, Issai took what looked like the smallest sip possible, leaving more in the bottle than he took in. He savored the water and screwed the cap back on.

The water was so precious to Issai that he wanted to preserve every last drop. I take clean water for granted, but many in Issai's village are regularly sick because their main source of water is a stream that is polluted by trash and excrement.

The trip to the village was memorable also because of Jon's faith and kindness, and because of William's courage in devoting his life to this one village, where many of the children's fathers leave the mother of their children to fend for themselves.

It might not be accurate to call the village remote, since it is only 30 minutes outside such a major city as Dar es Salaam. But people do often get gravely ill or even die for lack of medical attention. To give you an idea of the roads leading to the village, here is a picture of one.

Once we arrived at the village, Jon, who brought his own 9-year old son, told the kids to form a circle for stretching, and William translated into Swahili.

Here is a picture of the kids stretching.

At the same time, the younger children sang songs with William's wife in the small hut which functions as a church and schoolhouse.

Jon did some soccer drills with the older kids for a few minutes, but so many had come out today that he quickly went to a game that everybody could be involved in. It was a game of soccer, essentially, only instead of two teams there were five, and instead of one ball there were two. All of the five teams were trying to score with both balls in one goal.

I was the goalie.

I did my best to stop them without hurting any of the shoeless children, but in the end, they were too much for me.

Jon then had the children run a few sprints, which they really enjoyed.

As the children lined up for one sprint, a young boy began walking on his hands. The mothers of the village laughed and laughed, and I asked him to do it again so I could take his picture.

After the children were sufficiently worn out, William brought them all into the church, and Jon read a Bible story to the children as his son held up the book for him.

Soon after that, we left, but the kindness and joy of the people in the village, in the midst of their need and hardship, is something that I won't soon forget. Hopefully I can go back some day and see that well. Jon said on the way out that his mother wants to pay for it.

— Jon Ward, White House correspondent, The Washington Times