Diary: Bush's Africa tour

The BBC's Washington correspondent, Matt Frei, has been travelling with US President George W Bush on his visit to Africa. Here is his final diary entry on the much-anticipated tour.

Homeward bound from Nigeria. After five days and five countries the President is once again out of Africa.

He has spent almost as much time in the air as on the ground, and has also been doggedly pursued by questions about Iraq.

Yet this has been an important trip, casting him in a new light.

The same man who visited an Aids hospital in Abuja once declared that Africa was not a priority.

Now he has committed himself to a whole raft of the continent's issues, from the crises in Liberia, Congo and the Sudan to the fight against HIV/Aids.

At an African summit in Abuja it was not only Condoleezza Rice, the African American National Security Adviser, who was introduced as "sister".

Bush, a white conservative from Texas, was introduced as "brother".

Unscripted

It was in Botswana that we witnessed one of the few light-hearted interludes.

The American president inadvertently saw the mating of elephants in a game park. It was the only unscripted moment of a trip whose principal theme was deadly serious - Aids.

Day Three with Bush in Africa

One intriguing detail. In a briefing on Air Force One, Ms Rice told us that the president would actually be meeting people who were infected with HIV.

He may well have done, but the White House permitted only stills cameras in the two Aids clinics which Mr Bush went to see in Entebbe and Abuja.

It was a curious omission for a White House that is meticulous about delivering the right footage.

Aids has been the most important theme for a President who wants to remind his electorate - and the world - that he was once called a compassionate conservative.

Stowaway

The most alarming moment of the trip came on Friday in Uganda.

None of the 150 or so journalists on the United Airlines jumbo, chartered by the White House press corps, took much notice of the African man sitting in economy - one of the few who did not complain about the spinach frittata.

When I stood in front of the 'door of No return' on Goree Island... I wondered if some of my ancestors had wandered through there Condoleezza Rice

We saw him again later at the media filing centre, where he proceeded to have a tantrum and screamed something incomprehensible about South Africa, before being wrestled to the ground by three secret service agents.

The man came from Soweto and had wandered on to the plane without being checked.

A curious omission when you think of all the planes, boats, choppers, sniffer dogs and body guards who comb every inch of the continent that the president has visited.

After the embarrassment of the stowaway, our plane and luggage were subjected to a thorough sniffing by the canine entourage of the White House.

Moving

The most moving moment of the trip came, oddly enough, on Air Force One.

Condoleezza Rice was asked how she felt about being in Africa as an African American.

"I was very moved", she told us. "I still have a lump in my throat.

"When I stood in front of the Door of No Return on Goree Island, in Senegal, I wondered if some of my ancestors had wandered through there."

Moving. But let's not forget that much of the White House message was also aimed at African Americans - who normally vote Democrat.