Citizen Diplomacy with Malian Students (2014)
Citizen Diplomacy builds international understanding, and the Richmond’s Sister City relationship is intended to build relationships with their twinned cities. In my case, this means primarily Ségou, second city of Mali for which the citizen support group Virginia Friends of Mali was created.
In 2014 I visited Segou and became close friends with Salim Coumaré , a teacher who was my host because the usual key players in the Segou Sister City Commission were hosting other people. Madani, the president, had four from the French sister city Angoulême, while Mme Diao Fabété Tall was hostess to the new sister city delegation from Ngor, in Senegal.
I had the opportunity to spend time with Salim’s friends and start new partnerships in the schools while also meeting the French and the Senegalese. I knew that these new friendships could lead to new activities in the future. Three months later, Dr. Christopher Brooks from VCU arrived to work on his anthropological AIDS research and Salim became his research partner. Brooks then generously invited Coumaré to visit Richmond at his expense to work on their joint book, and to make a presentation to students at the Virginia Commonwealth University.
Creating understanding with students
Salim is a teacher of philosophy in Segou’s Cabral High School and I attended several of his classes. I enjoyed talking to students about American concepts of identity and society, democracy and individualism; all of which are a part of their Malian philosophy course. And how different our cultures are! America is focused on the individual: even nuclear family life has almost disappeared in America, where dogs and cats replace children for parents whose offspring now live faraway in Florida, Texas, Seattle or Hawaii. In Mali, the individual is nothing: a child exists because he is a part of his close and extended family, and personal names have little importance. A man is Keita or Touré because his ancestors were Keita or Touré, and the praise singer griots remind him constantly of his lineage. Keita or Touré women keep their identity when they marry: they may marry a Coulibaly, a Traoré, a Konaré, but never will they become anything other than Keita or Touré.
In our discussions about identity, Malian students were astonished to learn that respect for age has vanished from American society. They were amazed that old people live in retirement homes - unknown in West Africa – and that a young Virginian would not automatically take his or her elderly parents to live with them in their house. The individualism of American society is unknown in West Africa: and the Malian students deplored it!
English Teacher Club of Segou
Salim introduced me to the English Teachers’ Club where there are obvious opportunities for useful Richmond and American input. American textbooks are useless to schools where the students speak French, but English-language books and maps may help English teachers. Salim’s teacher friends were interesting and intelligent people; within a couple of months I was able to send them a box of English language books and maps to enrich their language teaching. Thus the Sister City experience is like a snowball: it rolls and rolls, and the activity gets bigger as it gathers snow through regular visits in each direction. But if you neglect the sister city relationship out in the sun, it will melt away and there will be nothing left but the memory of a former relationship. This book then, is the story of the snowball, of new friendships made and continuously active cooperation between the two cities.
Behind the summary, the wonderful music and the educational visits, the building of clinics and latrines, the visits and friendships and laughter, there are myriad memories and stories that made it all happen.