QUNU, South Africa (AFP) ― U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Nelson Mandela Monday at his rural homestead where South Africa’s first black president is living out retirement far from the public eye.

Her private lunch with the Nobel Peace Prize winner, the first event of her South African visit, is an honor that few receive as Mandela’s health has become more fragile with age.

Mandela did not speak but smiled as he and his wife Graca Machel posed for a picture with Clinton inside his home in the village of Qunu, in the rural Eastern Cape province.

“That’s a beautiful smile!” Clinton said.

“Madiba’s smile is a trademark,” Machel added, using Mandela’s clan name.

Mandela was elected president in South Africa’s first all-race elections in 1994, after spending 27 years as a political prisoner under the segregationist apartheid regime.

Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton, was the U.S. president when Mandela took office. Their two families developed close ties, with Bill Clinton paying a visit to Qunu last month on the eve of Mandela’s 94th birthday.

“Madiba not only represents all that there is great in the world, but (is someone) who to the secretary is a close friend ... somebody who she has learned a lot from,” a U.S. official said ahead of the top U.S. diplomat’s meeting.