I went yesterday to O'Hare with my bf, and noticed on the big flags there that Chicago has many, many sister cities - Prague, Warsaw, something in Israel and in China .. many, many sister cities - but none in Africa. Maybe we should email the mayor to ask if Chicago can get a sister city in Botswana? For Dipsy ..
Re: Chicago would need ... ... does anyone know the email address of the mayor? Maybe if all the Fire fans would email him that same idea, it would have more possibilities to getr realized.
There is a Sister Cities organization in Chicago. http://www.ci.chi.il.us/CulturalAffairs/SisterCities/ I attended some of their events in the nineties. The Sister Cities concept was really pushed by the old USSR, and died out there, to be resurrected in the U.S. What really got it going here was a visit by Jacques Chirac 10 years ago where he was wowed by the beauty of Chicago. He went home and pushed the idea of Paris being the sister city of Chicago in the U.S., even though Paris already had a Sister City in the U.S. I doubt they can do one with Botswana because it is so distant and it takes money to pull this off. Botswana was the pride of Africa 10 years ago because the economy was booming and the government wisely using diamond revenues. Things have gotten much worse there, largely due to the AIDS crisis. I don't think Botswana can spare any cash for Sister City events. Nice country, though.