The partying days are now over for Karitas

About three years ago, Karitas Karisimbi was the “it TV girl” in this town. We know she went ahead to become a mother of twin boys but then that is just about it. What has she been up to?

This Karitas seated before me at Stella Atal’s Studio in Kamwokya talks about postpartum depression, has been through the experience of raising premature babies and lists one of her best moments as going home to the cries of “Mummy! Mummy!” from her twin sons.

Ask her what she has been up to and she does not miss a beat. “Raising two energetic boys” is her answer.

Severally, when we spoke on phone, I could hear her asking them to stop doing this or the other as they fussed or giggled in the background. They must be a handful.

When we first sought this interview two months ago, she asked that we delay it. That she was not in a good place at the time.

Now all smiles and posing for pictures, she is definitely in a good place and the wait was definitely worth it.

All about timing
The former TV and Radio presenter talks about her decision to have children. “I woke up and felt I was ready to be a mother. But I was not going to wait around for a knight in shining armour from a Mills and Boon novel to come sweep me off my feet,” she says. She makes no apologies for choosing to take this path besides, of course, wishing she had had the children earlier. “But I believe that Gods timing is the best and I prayed about it. I am wiser now,” she says.

This God-mentioning, prayerful Karitas is the side of her we never knew during her days as a socialite and sought after television presenter. “Anyone who knows me well knows the amount of faith I have,” says the member of Mavuno Church.

Tough start
Still, watching her sons come from the thin line between life and death to the healthy two and a half-year-olds they are now, boosted her faith. “They were born with every complication you can imagine. That is why I find them so amazing. I know where they came from,” she says, looking every bit the moon-eyed doting mother.

The less than rosy start aside, Karitas threw herself into motherhood, taking a two-year break from work. “I sort of went back to produce Omubanda wa Kabaka (Bobi Wines reality TV show which airs on a local television station),” she says. Now, she feels the time has come to go back to what she calls her first love; TV.

“I have been holding on, but I am tired of sitting around doing nothing,”she says. Surviving without a job during that hiatus has been a mixture of frugality and the blessing of a very responsible baby daddy.”Lets just say I am very disciplined financially. I get what I need only when I need it,”she says.

“I am crawling back and something is in the pipeline. You will know when you know,” she says cryptically.

Settling into regular life
I wonder whether it is not life in the lime-light calling out to her. Maybe she misses the active party life? She was on the invite list of every party in this town, after all, at one point. “It was my work that put me on those lists,”she says. Then again, even in the name of work, she does not see herself going down that road again. “I was in my early twenties. It was the right time to do all those things,” she reasons. So there you have it: Karitas’ typical socialite days are behind her.

No bridges burnt and regretted by her change in lifestyle either. Karitas reveals she has had the same tightknit group of friends for years. “I have all the people who meant something to me. If I lost some people along the way, then they were really not my friends because I have not noticed yet,” she says.

Fashion designer, Stella Atal, is one such friend as has stuck with her since 1999, even before we knew her on TV. She says of her friend, “Karitas today is a less outgoing more reserved, and very focused person.”

Talking of friends, what about Zuena?
One minute they were bossom friends with Zuena Kirema, especially around the time she was away from her marital home, hanging out and working together. The other they were no more and Zuena’s husband, Bebe Cool, was warning Karitas off his wife . “I took it all in stride and kept quiet as a true friend, but to date I still wonder what I did wrong to warrant that kind of treatment. I was true friend to Zuena and she knew that too,” says Karitas.