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Help[Opinions] Re: Kaya
in reply to a message by Lily
Kaia, or Kaya, means 'house' in the Nguni languages and, unfortunately, 'piccaninny kaia' or 'little house' was formerly used as the slang name for an outhouse - a toilet in its own little building, away from the farmhouse for hygienic reasons. The usual euphemism for it was PK - going to the loo and going to the PK were the same. (There was even a very right-wing white politician (in Southern Rhodesia as was) whose initials were PK. This made a lot of people very happy.)
Not a name I'd use, as you can imagine.
Not a name I'd use, as you can imagine.
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lol but was the term Kaia actually being used for the outhouse or simply PK? Just wondering.
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It gets worse ...
At the period of which we speak, the (white) owners of the farmland would live in a Western-type house with rooms, built of brick or stone. Not wood, because of the termites and the weather. This was, naturally, known as a house. But the (indigenous African) farm labourers would live in African-type huts (typically round, one room for all purposes, with overhanging thatch to protect the mud walls from rain) or else shacks constructed of unconsidered trifles - sheets of corrugated iron, cardboard, packing cases etc; these, equally naturally, would be called kaias though the correct plural form was more like makaia or amakaia. From which we see that kaia was itself a pejorative term, though to avoid ambiguity the outhouse would be the PK.
At the period of which we speak, the (white) owners of the farmland would live in a Western-type house with rooms, built of brick or stone. Not wood, because of the termites and the weather. This was, naturally, known as a house. But the (indigenous African) farm labourers would live in African-type huts (typically round, one room for all purposes, with overhanging thatch to protect the mud walls from rain) or else shacks constructed of unconsidered trifles - sheets of corrugated iron, cardboard, packing cases etc; these, equally naturally, would be called kaias though the correct plural form was more like makaia or amakaia. From which we see that kaia was itself a pejorative term, though to avoid ambiguity the outhouse would be the PK.
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