Cherise: The talk of Zambia

By Dickson Jere
Lusaka, Zambia

Zambia's Cherise Makubale is still trying to come to grips with her new profile.

Cherise Makubale will help promote tourism in Zambia

Last week she returned home to a hero's welcome, after beating 11 other contestants in the reality TV show Big Brother Africa.

The widely watched show depicted 12 contestants from across the continent living together in a house under constant video surveillance.

One by one, the contestants were voted off, leaving Ms Makubale the winner of $100,000 and her country's heart.

Winning the equivalent of some half a billion Zambian kwacha, at 24 years old, she is now one of the youngest kwacha millionaires in Zambia.

Big draw

As expected, Zambians young and old have been ecstatic and overjoyed at their own national winning the show.

They have been turning up in large numbers to try and meet her at public events.

Born in the mining town of Kitwe on the Copperbelt Province, Cherise is an enigma.

She refuses to talk about her family. She was brought up by a foster father who is a white settler while her mother has been living in the United Kingdom for years.

She is believed to have had a rough childhood and spent much of her time with her foster father.

Gifts

Upon her arrival in Lusaka from South Africa on Thursday, Cherise rushed to State House for an impromptu lunch with President Levy Mwanawasa.

Mr Mwanawasa said she had done Zambia proud and immediately conferred upon her the role of Zambia's roving ambassador and a diplomatic passport.

Business houses have also been showering Cherise with gifts and services.

President Mwanawasa said Cherise's behaviour in the house was exemplary.

When other housemates were either having sex or drinking alcohol, Cherise preferred to clean and cook for them, depicting a more traditional African woman, he said.

Cherise, whose favourite food is chicken, told me that she enjoys cooking and dancing.

She also said she is very talkative. Something she admits is one of her bad habits.

Cherise is still single, and before featuring in Big Brother, she worked as a procurement officer at a small firm in Kitwe.

It is now likely that she will quit her low paying job to take up her new diplomatic appointment.

But one of the first things Cherise plans to do with her hard-won cash, is to fulfil her dream of buying a house for her foster father.