The partying days are now over for Karitas

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.

Weight issues
It is nothing to her that she may not get as much attention now as she did when she was actively on TV. “I was not in it for the whole celebrity status. I am comfortable just being a regular person,” she says.

What she is uncomfortable with is the weight she has since gained. The one that forces her to wear Mumu tops and long sleeves to cover her “mom arms”.

“I am not used to feeling so unfit or having people point out how much I have gained weight,” she says.

While being conscious of her weight is a pretty new thing for the former perfect size 12, hearing comments about her body is not. Her “small legs” have been the subject of many a tabloid story. Today, she finds it hilarious and laughs out loud when I talk about it, but there was a time it scared her off short skirts for good. “I had never paid attention to anyone’s legs before that, and suddenly it was all about them,” she says.

She now has the perfect answer for those who still want to take her up on that and in true Karitas style, it is delivered with a laugh. “So what if my legs are small? Legs are like cars. Those who have like them big or small and there are those who do not even care as long as they get you from point A to B!”

Marriage and baby daddies
Listening to Karitas tackle the relationship status question is a lesson in contemporary urban relationships. “I am single, but not single as in completely alone because I have Ssalongo,” she says. Ssalongo is the father of her identical sons whom she opts to refer to by the very modern term “partner”. She is unwilling to shed any light on his identity besides saying he is an American citizen who travels quite a lot. She is not in a rush to formalise the arrangement either, saying she was never those girls who dreamed of a white wedding. “Believe me I tried but it is just not me. Maybe I have been independent too long,” she explains.

Finding her passion
In the year 2000, Karitas was a 20-year-old Senior Six vacist working as a Games Manager at Muyenga International Hotel, as she awaited a chance to further her dream of becoming a lawyer. “It was the hottest hang out in town and I made a lot of friends,” she says. One of them was Elvis Sekyanzi, Club Silk boss and Managing Director at WBS TV. There was a slot at WBS TV Show Time Magazine as the then host, Tilly Muwonge, was leaving, Sekyanzi suggested that Karitas tries her luck.

The rest was easy as the eager, fresh-faced, vivacious girl with the heavenly smile fit right in show hosting like she was made for it.

Doing as much as she can
In a decade or thereabout, Karitas seems to have answered to more titles than most people do in a whole lifetime. And it is not about a search for what works. The 32-year-old insists this is part of who she is. “TV was the beginning of what I see as a lifelong passion, Radio was a new challenge I wanted to surmount. The hair salon was simply for the love of hair, while motherhood was the life changer,” is how she breaks it down. The motto “Do something that makes you say I am glad I did that” has served her well. So what if she looks at the WBS golden years with a bit of nostalgia?

Or misses entertaining people on the screen? The lady cannot name an actual regret in her life. “I would love to relive the last trimester of my pregnancy though, when I could feel the boys moving around,” she says. It is the present though that she cannot get enough of. The challenge and responsibility of being a parent. “I wish that every woman who wants children gets to have them. It has changed the way I look at life,” she says.

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