Tendai Rupapa in VICTORIA FALLS

Serbian First Lady Mrs Tamara Vucic on Friday paid a courtesy call on her Zimbabwean counterpart Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa on the sidelines of the first-ever United Nations Tourism Forum on Gastronomy for Africa, during which the two deliberated on a wide range of issues, including prospects for exchange programmes in various spheres like culture and education.

Zimbabwe and Serbia established diplomatic relations in 1980.

Mrs Vucic and Angolan First Lady Mrs Ana Dias Lourenço attended the historic forum, while other First Ladies from Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Mozambique, Nigeria, Angola, Cameroon, Malawi, Egypt, Tunisia and Botswana sent representatives.

The courtesy call preceded an African-themed dinner which Dr Mnangagwa hosted in honour of her guests who were served traditional dishes that included, brown rice, mazondo, nhopi, oxtail, road runner chicken, white sadza and sorghum sadza and dried vegetables in peanut butter among other mouth-watering dishes.

Entertainment at the dinner was provided by the inimitable Sandra Ndebele, whose energetic performance kept guests on their toes.

During the courtesy call, Mrs Vucic, who was visiting Zimbabwe for the first time, described the welcome she received as warm and immediately invited President Mnangagwa and the First Lady to also visit Serbia.

“First of all, it’s a great pleasure to be in Zimbabwe. As you know, it’s my first time, but I came on the journey with a full heart and all I experienced here is a real warm welcome and I congratulate you on the beautiful event that you had hosted and I was a part of it and we are really satisfied to be here,” she said, with a broad smile.

In response, Dr Mnangagwa said it was essential for First Ladies to regularly visit one another and exchange notes on various subjects.

“Thank you, very much. I think all of us have learnt a lot that exchanging is very important. If only countries and us as First Ladies visit each other through exchange programmes, I think that will enhance cooperation as women in our countries. And you also cooked our traditional dishes for us. It was wonderful and that’s the experience we want each and every First Lady to taste and to see what happens in other countries,” she said.

An elated Mrs Vucic responded: “In that, contacts are the most important ones. You know the Secretary-General of UN Tourism asked both of us, ‘do you know each other from earlier times or this is the first time that you met’. Which is a fact. That’s the first time, but this exchange of energy and good ideas is doing something.”

Dr Mnangagwa praised the United Nations Tourism for bringing nations closer with each other through forums like the one on gastronomy tourism.

“I want to thank the United Nations Tourism Secretary General Mr Zurab Pololikashvili and his team that they came up with this programme that has made so many African countries, including others like Serbia to be part of this gastronomy tourism and it’s the United Nations Tourism that has come up with this programme which I felt should go to many countries. We want to come to Serbia with it,” Dr Mnangagwa said.

Mrs Vucic weighed in saying: “We should do that and organise these kinds of events for the region, for the Balkans. Again it will be for the first time like here in Africa.”

“I heard you talk about certain things including food that you have in Serbia and we don’t know it here so you see it’s another way of showing each other what we have in our countries and we can make a lot of business, remember tourism is part of the economy and it comes to the GDP. If we start exchange programmes, we start now sending each other what we have in our countries.

“This is very important,” Dr Mnangagwa said.

“Your Excellency, in that regard I would love to welcome you and your husband to Serbia. That would be a historical visit I would say and that would be something not just for Serbia but for the region I would say. And it would be important for the exchange and in a way add value to our good and ethical bilateral relations that go back to 1980,” Mrs Vucic responded.

“So shall I say you are now our ambassador for Zimbabwe telling what you have seen here when you go back, especially gastronomy tourism,” Dr Mnangagwa said.

The Serbian First Lady said her country was offering scholarships to many children to study in her homeland and already, some students from Zimbabwe were benefiting.

“In that regard Your Excellency, I am sure that you are familiar with the big project that my country is having since 2011. We are giving scholarships to students to come and do their studies and go to universities in Serbia and come back to their own countries contributing in various ways. Every year we are giving some scholarships. For 2024 to 2025 we gave four for Zimbabwe and we are willing to increase the number of scholarships.

“We want to offer more scholarships for more people to come from here to Serbia to study. That is one of the ways to contribute to the education of the country and these people hopefully will come back and contribute to the country they belong to,” she said.

Dr Mnangagwa said she was also aware that about 60 Serbian students were in Manicaland at Africa University.

“Serbia has 60 students there. So we need to see more of these students in exchange programmes,” she said.

The dinner was attended by guests from the forum including First Ladies, their representatives, Mr Pololishkvli and his wife Tamara, Cabinet Ministers, their counterparts from other countries and women from Belarus who came for the women’s summit.

Addressing the delegates, Dr Mnangagwa reinforced the need to take gastronomy tourism seriously to unlock economic benefits for nations.

“To you tourism ministers, this is a test that I am giving and you have to make sure that you work hard, we want to come to your countries as well. The United Nations Tourism wants to come to your countries and we want to experience your type of food, how you eat it; how you preserve it and how you prepare it. I am saying to you all, don’t go back to your countries before you have seen what Victoria Falls has to offer and what Zimbabwe is all about,” she said.

Tourism, Dr Mnangagwa said, brings people together.

“Tourism has no border, in tourism we don’t fight, we have no hatred. Actually tourism blends people together. Food, gastronomy tourism is something that makes it possible to see people sitting down like this. In Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, we have very good food, which is medicinal and nutritious. We want all countries to come and taste it. It’s the same food but differently cooked and preserved but at the end of the day it makes you and me. United Nations Tourism, we will be with you in Africa and we will make sure that we put more effort so that you come more to Africa,” she said to applause. – Herald