mandela!

IOL: US First Lady Michelle Obama met South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela at his home Tuesday, in a rare visit with the ageing icon whose legacy frames much of her journey here.

The meeting with the 92-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner was discreetly arranged after Obama and her daughters visited archives chronicling some of his 27 years as a political prisoner.

At the Mandela Foundation, his wife Graca Machel guided Obama, her mother, and her daughters Malia and Sasha through an exhibit of his personal photographs and journals, in which he meticulously drafted letters but also kept more mundane notes on his weight and daily routine.

“After leaving here, she proceeded to make a brief courtesy call on former president Mandela,” said Achmat Dangor, the head of the foundation, calling the first lady “a lovely woman without any airs”.

Their visit added to the symbolism surrounding Obama’s journey, with America’s first black family in the White House meeting South Africa’s first black president. President Barack Obama has called the anti-apartheid struggle his first political cause, and US officials say he has had periodic telephone contact with Mandela, who led the struggle against white-minority rule. The two men met in 2006 when then-senator Obama toured Africa. A simple cell-phone picture of that meeting is now in Mandela’s office, aides to the first lady said.

Mandela welcomed her entire family into his home, including a niece and nephew travelling with them. Such visits are increasingly rare. Mandela, who turns 92 next month, has received few guests since he was hospitalised with an acute respiratory infection in January.

Mandela’s legacy in the battle for South African democracy defines much of Obama’s visit. After leaving his home in the leafy Houghton neighbourhood, they travelled to the Apartheid Museum, which chronicles the rise and fall of white rule.

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