Zambian promoting Aegean province with YouTube videos

AFYONKARAHİSAR

A Zambian student has won hearts in the Aegean province of Afyonkarahisar as she is promoting the city with YouTube videos she makes to earn a living.

“My real name is Chimwemwe Chita, but everybody in the town calls me ‘Çita.’ Many tourists come to visit Afyonkarahisar after watching my videos,” the 22-year-old woman told daily Hürriyet.

Chita’s bond to Afyonkarahisar dated back to 2017 when Kocatepe University, one of the 12 Turkish universities she had applied to, accepted her application to study veterinary medicine.

“Now I am in the fourth grade. I have one more year to study,” she said. “But I won’t leave Afyonkarahisar after the graduation. I want to stay here, I love here.”

Her dream is to work in a veterinary clinic, especially to take care of horses.

However, after graduation, she has a plan in mind “to travel all around Anatolia.” The very first place to visit will be the Cappadoccia, the picturesque historical region famous for its chimneys in Central Anatolia. “I want to fly with a hot air balloon over the Cappadoccia.”

When asked how she started making videos for YouTube, she pointed out a local media company named “Afyon Postası.”

“One day, a friend in the dormitory said officials of the Afyon Postası wanted to work with me and get benefit from my perspective while promoting the city,” she said.

The first video she filmed was about her visit to the present Ayazini village. “More than 50,000 liked the video. It was a good start, and then came the other videos.”

Her favorite local food is souffle with hash. “People need to come to Afyonkarahisar and taste all the local foods; they are delicious,” she recommended.

Apart from the money she earns from the local media company, she makes a living in the city by tutoring English lessons and sewing dresses.
She may be homesick, missing her family who is residing in her mother country, but she has been an “Afyon local,” with even her music taste converting into “Turkish.”

“I love listening to Barış Manço, Sezen Aksu, Murat Boz and Hadise,” she listed.

She also said that it was easy for her to adapt to the Turkish society as the social orders of the two countries, Turkey and Zambia, resemble.

“People of the two countries are both friendly and helpful, and even the salutation styles are the same,” she said.

“The only difference, I may say, is that Zambian food is spicier, and we do not have too many kinds of dessert as Turks do,” she underlined.

The Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, with a nearly 19-million population.