Memphis’ Sister Cities

Looking for a vacation destination this summer? Forget the Florida beaches, or the Ozark mountains, or even the Tunica casinos. No, we suggest you pay a visit to the official “sister cities” of Memphis — and we don’t mean West Memphis or Nashville.

According to Sister Cities International, Memphis has been paired with two communities on the western coast of Africa: the town of Kanifing in Gambia, and the larger city of Koalack in Senegal.

Sister Cities links communities that “have similar demographic and other characteristics.” So why Kanifing and Koalack? Well, according to Wikipedia, Koalack is “an important regional marketing town” and the “main peanut and processing center. Hmmm, not much in common with Memphis that we can see, even though some of us do like peanuts.

But how about Kanifing? Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s actually a suburb of a larger city called Serekunda, which is known for its “silk cotton trees” (huh?) and – okay, here we are — “its wrestling arena.”

That’s it! The universal bond of wrestling. That explains it.

Look, we don’t know why we have sisters in West Africa. We just do, that’s all. If you’d like to know more, visit the Sister Cities International site.