ZAMBIA’s award-winning reality television star Mutale Mwanza says her heart has been “stolen” by Zimbabwe.
The media personality, whose show “Mutale Unscripted” won the Best Unscripted Reality Show award last year at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards in Lagos, made these revelations to Standard Style recently.
She was part of the guests at the De Lux Events in Sunninghill, Bulawayo, a day after the launch of Miss Teen of The Universe.
Although this is her fourth time to visit Zimbabwe, Mutale said this time around the visit stood out for her as she came as a mature adult and an active content creator.
“When I was a kid, I came because it was sort of a must for every pupil if you reached a certain grade that you visit nearby countries and in my case we came to Zimbabwe,” she said.
“We travelled to Livingstone then crossed over into Zimbabwe in Victoria Falls where I enjoyed the ice cream in 1999, without exposing my age.
“The second time I was in Harare, it was lovely, I was invited by She Glows magazine where we had meetings with different stakeholders trying to see how we can empower young girls.
“Third time I was filming my reality TV show in Harare again with local media personalities that I got to meet.
“So this in my fourth time and I am in Bulawayo, although I haven’t seen much of the City of Kings and Queens.
“From what I have seen so far I like the ambiance and took photos from the monument (Joshua Nkomo) statue.”
She said she had been invited by local socialite and model Tariro Gezi.
On the local cuisine, she said Zimbabwe has the best isitshwala (sadza).
“I liked it and it’s so nice,” she said.
“You know what? I feel like we should have one name for isitshwala because it’s one thing we have in common.
“It differs here and there in preparation and names, we call ours nsima, in South Africa they call it pap, but we should just find a common name and enjoy ourselves.
“There is this one time where I ate gango where they mix up everything; it was so nice I will never forget that meal.”
The media queen said she has also met a couple of artists from Zimbabwe.
“I met Tariro, but we interacted at a personal level and she is much focused and loves her phone as a content creator and she made me remember that I need to always be switched on with everything that I do and interacting at that level is just nice because she is very serious with her brand,” Mutale said.
“I have also met Becky K, Ms V Candy, Nabila Goji, Feli Nandi, Nutty O and Alice Tagwira.
“It’s been amazing and I feel like these are people, who are goal-driven and they know what they want in the industry and they all bring different things to the table.”