New York, December 2, 2005 – “You can probably tell from my accent that I’m not from around here”, Clay Aiken told kids at a New York City elementary school on Friday. The UNICEF Ambassador showed off a “school-in-a-box”, a kit containing materials for students, screened a short video of his visit to tsunami-ravaged regions, and he explained the plight of Ugandan children forced into the military. Challenging the kids, Clay asked if anyone knew how many countries there are in the world. “Thirteen?” one guessed. Aiken said that there are more countries than that, but didn’t actually know how many; he had to ask one of the teachers.

The whole visit lasted about forty minutes, and then he immediately left the Greenwich Village building, without signing autographs.