First lady Michelle Obama has visited with dignitaries, schoolkids and women as part of her weeklong visit to Africa to promote youth leadership and education.

She and daughters, Sasha and Malia, arrived Monday.

She has even more events lined up this weekend, including a safari before she heads home from Botswana, but she has already sat down with South African ex-President Nelson Mandela and done pushups with Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu. She also went to a Cape Town, South Africa, museum after her planned trip to the notorious Robben Island prison, where Mandela spent 18 years, was canceled because of weather.

CNN caught up with Obama for an interview during which she discussed some of the high points of her trip:

On Mandela: "The one thing I told him, I wanted to make sure he understood how important his leadership and sacrifice has been to who I've become, to who my husband has become and, in short, I just said, 'Thank you.' It's really hard to know what to say to such an icon."
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