African resident fine with au pair appearing only occasionally (5)
I believe the answer is:
okapi
'african resident' is the definition.
(animal native to Africa)
'fine with au pair appearing only occasionally' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'fine' could be 'ok' (synonyms) and 'ok' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'api' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for okapi that I've seen before include "Small giraffe" , "beast from Africa" , "Central Afr. ruminant" , "browser" , "Animal of central Africa" .)