Comfortable at Ayan
Helen Judd
Monday, September 10, 2007
WHENEVER I get to Emporia, now I eat at the Somali restaurant, Ayan, on East 12th Avenue.
A friend in Emporia knows I like trying food of different cultures and told me about Ayan, so my daughter and I went last fall.
I really like the samosas, rice, spaghetti, chicken and goat meat. The little bowl of sauce served on the side is outstanding — not hot, but very flavorful. The menu in English says “vegetable,” which turns out to be a salad: crisp clean lettuce, fresh tomatoes, sweet onion slivers with fresh lime slices on the side and store-bought, salad dressing (ranch style). Dessert is a banana (skin on).
I have eaten there about a dozen times and so far am the only lady I have seen sit down and eat, but a few ladies come get “carry out.” When ladies are cooking, we smile at each other as I go to the front counter to pay my bill.
I have never been afraid for a second.
I do not know about the stabbing (on Aug. 25, police say one Somali stabbed another), but that certainly is not “foreign” in this country.
I hope those young people who are taking jobs that may be hard to fill are given a chance to make friends in our country, which has always been a place of opportunity for refugees — until lately.
My daughter works with refugees and finds them hard-working and eager to learn. One, a blind Somali girl refugee, now living in Portland, Ore., has just gotten her GED and plans to go to a community college this fall. She wants to learn how to teach blind children and return to her family who have been living in a Somali refugee camp in Kenya for seven years.