ACCRA, Ghana -- Melania Trump opened her first big solo international trip as U.S. first lady on Tuesday with a wave, a smile and a baby in her arms, aiming to promote child welfare during a five-day tour of Africa.
She arrived in the West African nation of Ghana after an overnight flight from Washington and quickly made her way to the Greater Accra Regional Hospital.
The first lady saw how babies are weighed -- they're placed in sacks that are then hung from a hook attached to a scale. She also watched a nurse demonstrate how vitamins are administered to babies by mouth and toured the neonatal intensive care unit.
Mrs. Trump also cradled an infant and declared the baby a "beautiful boy" as she handed him back to his mother.
Mothers at the hospital for her visit received gifts of teddy bears nestled in white baby blankets, personally handed out by the first lady, according to her spokesman, Stephanie Grisham. The items carried the logo of "Be Best," the child well-being initiative Mrs. Trump launched last May.
With the Africa visit, the first lady aims to take "Be Best" and its focus on opioid abuse and online behavior to an international audience.
The first lady also had a private tea with her Ghanaian counterpart, Rebecca Akufo-Addo. They exchanged gifts: a Chippendale silver tray embossed with an image of the White House inside a leather case signed by "First Lady Melania Trump" for Akufo-Addo, and Kente cloth and artifacts for Mrs. Trump, according to Grisham.
The first ladies met privately for about a half-hour at Jubilee House, Ghana's presidential palace. The two first met last week in New York at a reception on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Mrs. Trump landed in the capital, Accra, on Tuesday morning after a more than 12-hour journey from Washington. She was welcomed at the airport with dancing and drumming, schoolchildren waving small U.S. and Ghanaian flags and the gift of a flower bouquet. Akufo-Addo was at the airport to welcome her.
From Ghana, she will travel to Malawi, then Kenya, and finally to Egypt.
President Donald Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday that he saw television footage of her landing in Africa.
"It was beautiful," he said. "She's really doing a great job as first lady."
The president later tweeted: "Proud of our great First Lady -- and she loves doing this!"
Melania Trump's stops will largely highlight programs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, even as the Trump administration has sought to reduce agency funding to the continent by as much as 30 percent in its proposed budgets.
That generated alarm among many in humanitarian circles that it would close U.S. developmental and health programs, and diminish efforts to combat AIDS and malaria. Congress ultimately voted to restore the funding.
USAID, which worked with the first lady's office on the trip, has spent more than $47 billion on AIDS, malaria and other health programs over the past decade.
In Malawi, her second stop, Mrs. Trump is expected to focus on children's literacy efforts.
Information for this article was contributed by Darlene Superville and Francis Kokutse of The Associated Press; and by Emily Heil, Mary Jordan and Max Bearak of The Washington Post.
A Section on 10/03/2018