AYAHS, POTS AND PANS.
When the kiddies became a bit of a handful, the "Mem" suggested that we keep up with the Jones's and employ an Ayah. These Somali women seemed to be an indispensable part of a number of households, and it was often a fact that having been packed off to boarding school in England, many a child missed it's Ayah as much as it's parents. Of course, it wasn't necessary to have children to qualify for one. Being averse to cooking, ironing, cleaning and washing was a good enough excuse, or the fact that a lady felt that ladies didn't do that sort of thing. So, we got one we called AY, a big, bosomy, voluptuous, dark skinned girl. Handsome rather than beautiful, she came to us highly recommended and proved to be a good cook and housemaid as well as being able to control the kids who she would readily clip across the head with a tea cloth that always seemed to be draped over her shoulder. AY was noisy in all sorts of ways. Perhaps ebullient would be a more fitting term, and things were always lively where she happened to be. Children loved her, and our son and his friends could frequently be heard squealing in excitement as she chased after them with a rolling pin yelling: "I's going to put you in di pie for dinner!" She would 'swish' through the house. It was a sound peculiar to Somali women who wore four or five skirts at a time, making them all appear bottom heavy. Somali girls did not normally wear 'Shaidher', mandatory for local Arab females from a fairly tender age, but some would resort to it’s use occasionally, when going out and not particularly wishing to invite attention. There was nothing timid about these females, however, and a Somali woman could look a man straight in the eye, making many feel jolly uncomfortable! Near the back of our home was a bare concrete pad. It had once been the floor of a bungalow similar to ours until the place had been burned down by an Arab workman called in to re-stick some loose bedroom floor tiles for the Goldings. He'd brought along his primus stove and a small drum of tar, and whilst this was brewing up, he popped outside to pass the time of the day with some air-conditioning fitters. Returning, he found the bedroom well alight, and, with the aid of a very considerable air flow from the rejuvenated A/C machine, there was little left for the firemen to do ten minutes later except to damp down the embers. It was customary for the Ayahs to make their food in their employer's kitchens and take the pots out to the concrete pad where they dined communally. This meal took about an hour and buzzed with conversation as all the news of the day was imparted and disseminated. Needless to say, we British figured very largely in all this, and what appeared to them to be some of our antics, qualified for great peels of laughter. The meal over, pots and pans were returned to their respective kitchens. Sometimes, would be more correct, as it was not at all unusual for the "Mem" to bemoan the loss of some utensil or other, or wonder where a new arrival had come from. The "Memsahibs" eventually got over this problem by scratching their house numbers on the more valuable ones. Once the washing up was completed, the Ayahs re-assembled on the slab and started to dance and sing. A crowd of Somali men would appear out of the dark, and squatting around the edge, would clap their hands and tap the concrete with their sticks to provide the beat, the girls whirling in wild abandon and. showing off their multi coloured underskirts as they span. Of course, all this tended to drive the Brits crazy, as they were not exactly Somali attuned, and life only became tolerable when we curtailed their entertainment at this particular location to two nights a week. The girls listened to Cairo radio each evening. The station was known as "Saut al Arab" (Voice of the Arabs) and AY and her friends were very keen on it because it started off one of it's programmes with songs by the "Val Doonigan" of the Arabs, an Egyptian film star and singer called: Fareed El Atrash. A minute or two before the programme started, AY, accompanied by four or five of her cronies would come knocking our back door requesting permission to listen. The 'Mem" always said 'yes,' whereupon they would all pile into the back of our car and warm up the radio set which I had resigned myself to leaving permanently tuned to Cairo! Station identification over, the announcer would welcome his listeners and introduce the singer. It went something like this:
"Salaam aleykum, Salaam aleykum. Huna Saut Al Arab min al Kahira. Wa elan, Fareed al Atrash ba-yaghunni."
(Peace be upon you. This is the Voice of the Arabs broadcasting from Cairo. Fareed El Atrash will now sing.) There would then be a long pause, as this chap was a past master at winding up the wenches, and all noise would disappear so that one could ear a pin drop. Then he'd start, with a quiet, soulful, tremollo kind of voice.
"Ana wenta, ana wenta, wal khub ikfayaleyna."
(You and I, You and I, our love keeps us together!)
High pitched gasps of 'AAAAH!" from the Ayahs.
"Ana wenta, ana wenta, ad dunia milk edeyna."
(You and I, you and I, the world -- something or other!) ---------
followed by a higher pitched scream from our AY.
All h--ll would now broke loose in my automobile, as laughing and warbling in the Arab fashion, the dusky maidens climbed out carrying AY between them -- completely sent!! They would take her to her room and throw her none too gently onto her bed then hurry back to the car for another dose of the singer. This performance would often be repeated as Fareed gave one or other of the girls the 'vapours,' and now and again, he would cop the lot in one go which resulted in my having a flat battery in the morning, the girls having been too far gone to remember to switch off the radio! One night, two policemen arrived at our front door, and producing a small Prestige kitchen knife, enquired if it was ours. Well, one Prestige knife looked very much like another to us, especially as the company had supplied 100 houses with about 15 each! We weren't sure. "Why?" we asked. Well, did we have a Somali girl called A----?
"Yes we have." replied the "Mem." looking thoroughly alarmed. "Has anything happened to her?" "No. Not to her exactly." said one of the cops. "But she had an argument with another Somali girl in a bus in Crater Pass, and somehow, by accident no doubt, she stuck the knife into her. Fortunately, the blade was only four inches long and had had a bit of a job getting through six skirts so that the damage was only superficial. The victim, however, swore that she was dying." AY was taken to court and fined Eleven Pounds which we had to pay as she hadn't saved any money for such contingencies. Not wishing to be seen as one who harboured criminals, the "Mem" decided to give her her cards a few days later. Thankfully, we weren't had up for aiding and abetting because she used our knife, for as the "Mem" pointed out, the fact that a knife happened at a particular time to be in our kitchen was no guarantee that it was ours at all -- Ayahs being Ayahs, that is!