Getting the househelp every career mum dreams of

For a career mother, there is nothing as beautiful and refreshing as starting a New Year with a promising house manager.

After a roller-coaster season of housegirls from hell last year, it seems God has finally answered my prayer in the form of one Eshe, an elderly Ugandan woman from Entebbe who is a breath of fresh air.

The woman has been in my house for almost a fortnight and it’s like she been around for years. This mama is so good; she is a reincarnation of my all-time favourite girl Mwende, who quit last year to get married.

By the time I was employing her, I was almost losing hope. I had exposed my children — Tasha who is eight and Troy who is two years and some months — to so many housegirls, I felt it would harm their physiological development.

You see the more housegirls you expose young children to, the more unstable they will be as they grow. I digress.

The situation got so bad that after I fired the last one, Tasha pleaded with me, “Mummmm please don’t bring another girl here...I am tired of them!”

That plea pierced my heart and thought that I should probably quit my job and put my house in order...

But just before I made the big decision, I got a call from our pastor’s wife.

“Mama Tasha looks like this New Year is yours. I have a housegirl from heaven for you. She used work for a friend for 10 years but the family is relocating to the US.”

It’s rare to get a referral from a pastor’s wife, so I took her in immediately.

And since she came, there is so much order and tranquility in my house it is like heaven.

Eshe epitomes good house management. A widow in her late 40s, she is respectful, hardworking, organized to a fault, God fearing and genuinely loves children — and that is the icing on the cake

Immediately I set my eyes on her, I knew Christmas would start early. Though much older than us, she greeted my husband and I in the respectful Buganda ways: kneeling and bowing. She melted our hearts.

“Please don’t bow, just greet us the normal way,” I told her.

To orientate her, I thought I would use the few days when I was on leave to show her how things are done. I was in for a pleasant surprise.

On the night she arrived, she requested that I brief her fully on how things are done in my house, then leave everything to her. In case she needed some direction, she would ask.

So far, Eshe is so on top of her game, things have been moving so smoothly that I feel spoilt. The food is good, the house is clean and the children are super happy.

What more can a career mother ask for?