Juanita’s Interview With NPR By Way of Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Sunday March 4

Juanita’s gift giving project garnered her an interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, special correspondent for National Public Radio and former correspondent for the McNeil-Lehrer Report and The News Hour.

An hour before we were leaving for the airport for the flight to take us to Dakar , Senegal , Charlayne came to the hotel with microphone in hand; ready to get a few remarks from Juanita about her trip. The interview is slated to be aired on News & Notes, the popular daily program hosted by Farai Chideya.

The interview which lasted about five minutes, took place on a sofa in the hotel lobby.
Charlayne is no stranger to the hotel. It is where she stayed during her days writing about South Africa when she was national correspondent for The NewsHour.
She mentioned the hotel in her new book, “New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa’s Renaissance.”

She was living in America when she first covered South Africa . After the historic elections which resulted in Nelson Mandela becoming president, Charlayne and her husband Ron Gault left America and relocated to South Africa .
Charlayne and Ron were also gracious hosts to Juanita’s group. They invited us to cocktails at their very attractive, art-filled home in the Westcliff a suburb of Johannesburg . There we met a handful of their friends, including Kenneth Walker still another African-American journalist who relocated to South Africa after the elections. Kenneth is a former White House correspondent of ABC News and was also a reporter for Nightline's special reports on South Africa 's transition from apartheid to a free democracy.

To give us a glimpse of Johannesburg ’s night life they arranged for us to have dinner at the Melville Grill, a popular eatery owned by Samson Mulugeta who happens to be a former journalist. Before the elections Samson worked as Africa correspondent for Newsday and later worked as staff writer for the New York Daily News. After the elections he also decided to live in South Africa .

Are we seeing a pattern here?

During her brief interview with Juanita in the hotel lobby, Charlayne asked Juanita to share any profound moments she experienced so far. I won’t give away Juanita’s response. That can be heard when the program airs.

After Charlayne interviewed Juanita, she granted me a few moments to interview her.
I wanted to know her impressions of Juanita’s project.
Her remarks were complimentary.

"I wish I had been out there with her so I could have seen it," she told me. From the reaction I got from the South Africans that I talked to people have been very appreciative. This is the kind of initiative that is sure to inspire other people to do similar things."

Visit: http://www.randomactsfoundation.com/story.html

Watch: http://www.ibroadcasts.tv/randomacts.html