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COVER STORYOct. 20, 2006

Sister Acts

D.C.’s international siblings don’t always return the love.

By Sarah Godfrey and Amanda S. Miller

(Illustrations by Kyle T. Webster)

When it comes to sisters, “relationships go in seasons,” says Ami Neiberger-Miller of Sister Cities International, the D.C.-based organization that pairs cities around the world to “promote peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation,” according to its Web site.

Citing the changing nature of Sister City Agreements, which are formal acknowledgments between two communities to participate in “friendly, meaningful exchange,” Neiberger-Miller mentions the partnership between Asheville, N.C., and the city of Vladikavkaz, in southern Russia. The relationship had fallen fallow through the years, but following the 2004 school massacre in nearby Beslan, someone on the Asheville side of the partnership who had attended the targeted School Number One revitalized the relationship. “They went to Beslan, met with families of survivors, started up a significant aid program,” says Neiberger-Miller. “Their sister-city relationship is on the move again—they tend to go in cycles.”

At home, D.C. has signed Sister City Agreements or less formal “Protocols of Friendship” with 12 cities around the globe, fewer than Chicago’s 25 partners and slightly more than New York’s 10 siblings. Mayor Anthony A. Williams has brought in nine of the District’s sisters under his administration alone. And unlike many other U.S. mayors, he has taken to heart Sister Cities International’s advice to “visit your sister” to squash the stereotype of “arrogance and insensitivity” by American officials who don’t reciprocate trips.

Though Williams is devoted to building these familial relationships, not all of D.C.’s sister cities are quite as enthusiastic.

Best Sister: Dakar, Senegal

Dakar cares about its sister. In 1987, it named a Freedom Plaza–sized quadrangle in its downtown district “Washington, D.C. Square.” Dakar is the only one of Washington’s sister cities to have a full-time assembly set up solely to administer programs on behalf of the sisterhood. According to D.C.–Dakar Council Chair Shirley Smith, programs include a summer enrichment program for 30 children, a scholarship program, a pen-pal program, and a Senegalese English Club. This sister even faithfully celebrates D.C.–Dakar week every year. When it comes to partners, “you couldn’t ask for a more gracious host” than Senegal, says Smith. D.C.’s love for Dakar, however, is a bit spotty. “[T]he mayor’s office never gave me a gift to take,” Smith says. When she’s gone to Senegal, Smith says, she’s had to purchase her own gifts for the Senegalese. Once there, she is treated like a head of state.

Worst Sister: Bangkok, Thailand

The Bangkok–D.C. sister city link was established when three D.C. commissioners signed a sister city resolution with Thailand’s capital city back in 1962. But Bangkok hasn’t done much to celebrate its ties to D.C. lately. A source at the Thai Embassy, who declined to be named, couldn’t recall any specific celebrations or commemorations that have taken place in Bangkok recently. “It’s not very major,” the source says of the relationship between Bangkok and D.C. The source does mention that, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the agreement—D.C.’s oldest—the Thai Embassy held its annual “Thai Week” in D.C. in 2002, even though it is not an official sister cities event and typically travels to a different locale every year. “I believe Thailand had given the District of Columbia a gong as a souvenir,” the source says. Other highlights of the fest included demonstrations of Thai boxing, Thai massage, a Thai wedding ceremony, Thai kite flying, and Thai cooking by the governor of Bangkok. But, the embassy source says, Mayor Williams missed out on most of the fun and cultural enrichment. “A representative of the mayor cut a ribbon with our ambassadors—at that time the mayor had to travel overseas.”

Just Friends: Paris

According to the city of Paris’ official Web site, “the only sister city of Paris is Rome.” Other pacts of friendship and cooperation agreements have been signed with a number of other cities—Washington being one. But Paris will not go so far as to claim the District as a full-fledged sister.

Time Will Tell: Sunderland, England

Located in the English countryside, Sunderland is the District’s newest, and littlest, sister. “We usually just do capital cities,” says Pat Elwood, the acting secretary of the District of Columbia, whose office runs the sister-city program. The District agreed to sister with Sunderland because the town is the ancestral home of George Washington. “This has something to do with one aspect of our heritage,” Elwood says. Among the acts the partnership has yielded so far: a scholarship student exchange program between a Sunderland college and the University of the District of Columbia. CP