Bush Daughters Edge Back Into Spotlight
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: News

Jenna Bush, right, daughter of U.S. President George W. Bush, hands out postcards of her pets to dancing children during a visit to the Equal Opportunity for All Trust Fund with her mother, U.S. first lady Laura Bush, not pictured, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Wednesday, July 13, 2005. >>>>>

Bush Daughters Edge Back Into Spotlight

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania - In front of the television cameras, Jenna Bush listens silently to Tanzanian orphans who have been left by AIDS with no family. Across the continent in South Africa, twin sister Barbara quietly cares for children afflicted with the devastating disease.

First lady Laura Bush's trip to Africa this week has brought her 23-year-old daughters back into the spotlight that they have shunned for most of their father's presidency. The trip also found them — at least by Wednesday — dealing with it in different ways.

Jenna Bush has emerged as a prominent, if quiet, partner in her mother's African goodwill tour. Accompanying Mrs. Bush as she left South Africa for Tanzania and the trip's final stop in Rwanda, Jenna decided to begin taking part in all her mother's events.

It was a reversal from the early part of the trip, when both she and Barbara did everything they could to remain unseen and unheard.

On Wednesday, Barbara remained behind — and behind the scenes — in Cape Town, South Africa, where she has been working as a hospital volunteer with young AIDS sufferers and other patients.

Laura Bush said Jenna was comfortable with assuming a more public role — and wanted to demonstrate the commitment of her father's administration and her country to this impoverished continent.

Back in Washington, Jenna has followed her mother into the teaching profession, and will continue this year working at a public charter school that serves inner-city elementary-age students.

"She thinks that her presence is ... important to let American kids her age, young people her age — as well as African girls her age — know that her generation is also committed," the first lady said on the plane that brought her and her daughter here from Cape Town.

Indeed, dressed in a colorful print skirt, aqua sweater and white T-shirt, Jenna appeared poised and relaxed as she stayed by her mother's side here, from an airport greeting by dozens of traditional African dancers to an evening dinner at the presidential compound with Tanzanian first lady Anna Mkapa. She didn't seem troubled that photographers angled to document nearly her every move.

At a Catholic-run AIDS prevention and treatment center, she handed out gifts of pens, postcards of her pets, bookmarks and spiral notebooks to several children orphaned by AIDS. The children, some of whom are also afflicted with the disease, sat on benches overlooking a dusty courtyard and told Mrs. Bush and Jenna how the charity is helping to support them and get them drug treatment.

Later, at a social services organization for the rural poor, Jenna snapped up beaded jewelry — two necklaces and a bracelet — made by poor Tanzanian women trying to support their families. She mingled among children dancing, singing and Hula-Hooping for the first lady's entourage and passed out more of her trinkets.

As for Barbara, Mrs. Bush said she was due to return to the United States later this month after spending several weeks working in the South African hospital with some friends. She didn't elaborate on what was next, and the White House wasn't revealing what — if any — plans Barbara has made.

The first lady said both her daughters, who graduated from college last year — Barbara from Yale and Jenna from the University of Texas — feel strongly about helping others.

"It is certainly part of the age. They're idealistic and they wanted to help," Mrs. Bush said. "But it's a particularly American character and I admire that very much in my own girls and in the young people I've met around the country."

The press-shy Bush twins campaigned cross-country last year for their father's re-election, even putting on a nationally televised joint comedy schtick at the Republican National Convention. But afterward, the girls perhaps best known for their party-hopping, fashion-forward ways went back under wraps where they have mostly been — aside from some legal run-ins over underage drinking and occasion gossip-column accounts — since their father took office in 2001.

So it was no surprise that Jenna, accompanying her parents to a summit of world leaders, kept a low profile in Scotland. Or that the twins, united in Africa when Jenna and Mrs. Bush met up with Barbara for a private weekend safari, made every effort to avoid notice.

Jenna and Barbara hustled up the plane's back stairs to dodge official tarmac ceremonies and skipped all their mother's public appearances in Cape Town — even though a primary focus of the first lady's trip is the AIDS crisis that had drawn Barbara to South Africa. Instead, they hung out around the city and went out for private dinners with their mom.

Even on a chance encounter with reporters in the hotel where Mrs. Bush's entourage was staying, Barbara strode through the lobby with her hand shielding her face.

Jenna, however, offered a cautious "Hello." Then the next day, the same girl who once on a European trip with her mother insisted on being shielded from the cameras by a garment bag, took her place in Mrs. Bush's official delegation.

Yahoo News ~ Associated Press - Jennifer Loven ** Bush Daughters Edge Back Into Spotlight