Irish rock star Bono broke into song for school-children in Ghana yesterday during a fact-finding tour of Africa with the US Treasury Secretary, Mr Paul O'Neill.
Bono said he didn't normally sing on request but a 12-year-old pupil, who had never heard of the U2 front man until a cavalcade of gleaming four-wheel drive vehicles descended on the school, persuaded Bono to break his own rule.
Bono, whose tour alongside Mr O'Neill includes Ghana, South Africa, Ethiopia and Uganda, sang the 1987 U2 hit I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For while the unlikely travelling companions were at the school.
"They told us he was a well-known singer, so I told him to sing for us," said Felicia Boateng, who attends the Richard Akwei Memorial school in a poverty-stricken neighbourhood of Ghana's capital.
"Normally I would say 'No, I don't go there'," said Bono, placing his trademark blue wrap-around sunglasses over the girl's eyes.
"Thanks for making me do that," he told her, shading his own eyes with his hands. "You know what you are? You are genuinely cool. Maybe I'll get there when I'm 60."
Mr O'Neill, a former businessman, and Bono, the seasoned debt-relief campaigner, are touring Africa together to see how aid from rich countries can help the world's poorest continent drag itself out of the economic mire. Mr O'Neill is a keen advocate of private enterprise and noted critic of lending by some Western institutions.
Bono, however, insists poor countries still need help building decent roads and providing basic services before enterprise can flourish.
"I consider myself one of the best arm-wrestlers I know and part of my job is to arm-wrestle people who feel aid can't be effective," Bono told pupils and teachers in a dusty courtyard under a blazing midday sun.
The school is part of a project funded by foreign donors and Ghana's government. It aims to teach pupils skills such as cooking and leatherwork so they can try and make a living in an area with high unemployment.
"We are really, really, really happy we are getting help. It's our prayer that it grows further," said Ms Elisabeth Agyemang Gyau (49), an English teacher at the school of nearly 900 pupils.
However, she was as bemused as many others in the school by Bono's visit. "Who is he?" she asked as the convoy raced to catch a plane for an afternoon visit to the north of Ghana. "Why didn't he stay and talk to the children about AIDS?"
Earlier, on the second day of their 12-day Africa tour, the pair visited a fish-smoking project funded by the African Development Bank in Accra.
A US official accompanying the pair said Mr O'Neill and Bono were impressed by "this wonderful economic independence and the tiny steps these people were taking on a long road." - (Reuters)