Michaëlle Jean said Sunday she deliberately chose Africa for her first official visit as Canada's Governor General.

Speaking in Algiers at the start of a three-week, five-country trip, Jean said she had always longed to visit the continent where her Haitian ancestors originated.

In Algiers at the beginning of a visit to Africa, Governor General Michalle Jean smiles at people cheering her from balconies in the Casbah
(Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

"I have never set foot on African soil," she said, speaking in French, "but I feel at home here."

Jean was greeted at the airport by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, whom she last met when she interviewed him in her previous career as a journalist in Montreal.

Jean is being accompanied by a delegation of Canadian business people and legislators, but her main intent, according to Canadian Press reporter Alex Panetta, is to change people's perceptions of Africa.

"She referred to this as 'continent of hope'," Panetta, who is covering the visit, told CBC Newsworld from Algiers, "and used the word 'Afro-pessimism' to describe how people often see it. She wants to encourage development and bring a message of hope and a better future to Africa."

Tour of the city

After the official greetings and a drive through Algiers, Jean toured the city's Casbah, or old quarter, on foot. Most city streets are decorated with Canadian flags and huge portraits of the Governor General.

Jean will spend four days in Algeria before going on to Morocco, Mali, Ghana and South Africa, where she is to meet Nobel peace prize winner and anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The opening day of Jean's visit to Africa was full of exotic scenes and vice-regal pomp and ceremony. But the Governor General told reporters in Algiers that she would most remember her first day on African soil for the ululating voices of children, greeting her from rooftops in the old city.

 

with files from the Canadian Press