I traveled with President Bush today during his afternoon activities in Kigali, Rwanda.

You can read my news story about the president's day here.

I was part of the press pool (explanation here) after Mr. and Mrs. Bush visited the genocide memorial, and filed this report to the White House press corps.

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POOL REPORT #3

DEDICATION OF U.S. EMBASSY, VISIT TO LYCEE DE KIGALI SCHOOL, FLIGHT TO GHANA

2/19/08

A little bit of news on Pakistan, and a bunch of color.

Dana gaggled en route to Ghana. She said the White House views the election in Pakistan yesterday as legitimate and a positive step.

"We asked [Musharraf] to get them back on the road to democracy. It appears he has done that with these elections," Dana said. "They seem to have been largely fair and people were able to express themselves."

Cuba came up, but Dana said there was nothing new to add to POTUS' comments from the Rwanda presser. Africom also came up, and Dana said she had heard the criticism that Africom was an attempt to "militarize Africa."

"Surely that's not the case," she said, talking at some length about what the White House regards as AFRICOM's purpose. She also said the topic has come up in meetings so far but that the issue of AFRICOM's headquarters has not been discussed.

Dana also said that POTUS spent "about an hour with Sir Bob Geldof," who was a guest member of the pool at this afternoon's events and then interviewed POTUS on board AF1. He is apparently planning to write an article about PEPFAR and economic development for Time magazine and also for some European outlets including Liberacion.

And here's the play by play for the afternoon, following the press conference:

After finishing lunch with President Kagame and Mrs. Kagame, POTUS rolled in the motorcade from the presidential compound at 2:20 p.m. local, en route to the new U.S. embassy.

We arrived about five minutes later, and walked up a driveway inside the walled compound to the outdoor event site. About 250, maybe 300 folks were seated on a patio facing the fairly massive embassy, a tan and gray structure made out of what looked like marble.

POTUS walked in and sat down on the stage, with Condi seated on his right and Kagame on his left. Ambassador Arietti spoke first. He said the new embassy is "a physical monument" to the ties between the U.S. and Rwanda.

The ambassador said that there would be 50 U.S. staff and 190 Rwandan staff at the embassy. He also said that the Kigali City Council was close to renaming the traffic circle next to the embassy after "one of America's greatest citizens" -- Martin Luther King Jr.

Ambassador Arietti then introduced POTUS, who got a standing ovation from the crowd.

"I had a speech. I'm not going to give it," POTUS said closing up a black binder. He talked off the cuff for a few minutes.

He referenced his visit earlier to the genocide memorial. "It's hard to believe that a country could recover so quickly after such a horrible moment," he said (check transcript, which is coming, or maybe already came).

"We stand with you as you hope for a better future," POTUS said, drawing applause from the crowd.

POTUS also talked about Kagame. "I like dealing with strong leaders who care about the people."

And he also took another veiled shot at the U.N.: "When we are suffering we don't just sit around talking about it."

POTUS also joked that he thought the ambassador was going to announce the traffic circle was being named after Condi. "I was certain you were going to say Rice Blvd."

Kagame spoke after POTUS. He paid tribute to America as an inspiration for Rwanda, and said that the embassy was "evidence that we are building a new nation."

"We are proud of that," Kagame said.

POTUS appeared pretty jovial as they then moved to cut the ribbon. He laughed as Rice unveiled a plaque, and then took the huge scissors for the ribbon-cutting and held them up next to his head, as if he was going to give himself a hair cut. He cut the ribbon, and then a troupe of drummers and dancers started up. POTUS moved briskly in their direction, and appeared to be warming himself up for another Malaria Day-like performance, doing the little shoulder shimmy with his palms down that he made famous last year. But it was only a quick jig with the dancers, and then he took some pictures with them and moved to a rope line with the attendees.

POTUS took some time with the rope line. We were in the vans by 2:38 but didn’t roll until 2:58. Our van lost sight of the motorcade at times as we drove through the blockaded streets, but we eventually caught up, driving down into a valley past hillside shantytowns and then back up another hill. Again, as earlier in the day, there were lots of people on the side of the road -- perhaps not the tens of thousands mentioned in Tanzania, but certainly thousands all together. It did seem at times that the entire city had come out to see us.

We arrived at the Lycee de Kigali school at 3:08 or so. It's a school for about 1,500 middle school and high school students, situated on a verdant hillside. We held in a classroom for almost 30 minutes -- one of the wooden desks was engraved with these words: "Jesus Reigns."

During a bathroom break your pooler did see that Condi and Ambassador Arietti were seated in chairs in the hillside courtyard, in the center of the school complex, talking to several students seated on the grass.

Around 3:34 we came out into the courtyard, en masse, and waited for POTUS/FLOTUS to emerge from the classroom where they were meeting with students who had, according to the White House, gone through a seminar on communicating with their parents.

POTUS walked out after FLOTUS and was introduced to the 25 or so teens, who were part of the Anti-AIDS club. A couple of the kids had prepared things to tell POTUS. One girl named Sharon said that "at our age we believe that abstinence is the best thing to do until marriage," and said the club does dramas, concerts and plays to drive that message home.

POTUS asked if they tested for HIV at the school, and was told they do. A boy said it is tough because you are afraid of being HIV positive. "A little bit of a stigma?" POTUS said.

POTUS thanked the kids for being leaders, and said "It's not easy is it?" and then we were escorted back to a hold for about 10 minutes while they talked. Then we went back up for a skit where a young girl was propositioned by two different boys but told them both to back off because her father had told her to "abstain."

The skit was really about the response of the two boys. One walked away saying the girl was ugly but the second said he was sorry for risking HIV infection and said they should both go get tested, which seemed a little odd since they were, in fact, not having sex. POTUS looked a tad uncomfortable at moments during the skit, but nothing major. He nodded when the girl said she was abstaining.

After the skit, the students presented POTUS with a walking stick or cane of some sort that looked to be covered with black and white animal hair or fur. FLOTUS got a gift basket.

The motorcade rolled out at 4:10, and was at the airport 10 minutes later. POTUS and Kagame shook hands with a group of about 30 Rwandan soldiers in camo just back from a peacekeeping mission in Darfur, and it was wheels up moments later.

Air Force One landed just after 7 p.m. local in Accra, and POTUS was down the stairs at 7:10, to a short receiving line, and then some dancers and drummers, but no formal ceremony. Motorcade rolled out at 7:30, and drove about 10 minutes through streets packed with people sometimes as close as a few feet away from the vehicles. We were at the hotel by 7:45.

-- Jon Ward, White House correspondent, The Washington Times