Gifts are part of the Sister Cities tradition.
When the generous delegates from Biot, in the south of France, visited Tacoma last fall, they brought glass art and a box of silly red wax lips for a gag photo.
The glass, including a lippy fish, is part of the Tacoma Sister City collection of art and books. The wax lips, who knows?
Now it is time for a group of dedicated Tacomans to pack their bags and jump on a plane bound for France, as a delegation of T-Town’s Sister Cities representatives make their way to Biot on April 4. Tacoma’s delegation invited this reporter to join them as a journalist to document their visit. The people of Biot are looking forward to Tacoma Weekly sharing pictures and stories of their walled medieval city with you.
(No worries, no public money is involved on the Tacoma end.)
This is what we know about Biot so far: It is lovely, on a hill a couple of miles from the Mediterranean Sea. It is the capitol of art glass in France. The newer city nearby is the tech center of France. Most of the residents of the old city are prosperous, and the government addresses most social problems. Biot will hold its annual Knights Templar festival while we are there.
So, what do you give – in addition to Almond Roca – to a city that has everything?
Because we are a city of gardens, edible and floral, I plan to bring packets of Ed Hume seeds.
Because we are a city of givers and doers, I am collecting T-shirts from volunteer efforts. (Picture Polar Plunge tees on the Riviera.)
Because we are complex and diverse, ingenious and tenacious, I would like to bring a letter from you, too. Consider this your invitation to tell the mayor, journalists, innkeepers, artists and families of Biot about the people of Tacoma.
Just finish this sentence: “We are…”
Post your thoughts, or e-mail them to me, to kathleen@tacomaweekly.com. If you leave your name and a contact number, you can also phone it in at (253) 922-5317. We will run the finished letter in the Weekly, and we will share it (and a translation of it) with the journalists in Biot.
Merci, mes amis.