October 17, 2008 - A Night at Moyo!!!

Last night the Shell crew all went together to a special South African restaurant called Moyo. It is a South African themed place with a variety of cuisine. It is at the local Marine World called "UShaka". There are several good restaurants there and we have already been to one of them (the huge shark/fish filled aquarium) but everyone has told us that we should go to Moyo and that is where the group decided to have their dinner get-together.

I was not going to join them because it is the work team and non of theother spouses would be there, but when Abdul El heard this he shamed me into reconsidering. I'm sure he would have been offended if I had not attended. But as it turned out, I am so glad that I did.

I got to try crocodile meat!!! I ordered it as a "starter" (appetizer) to share with Ed. He was a little reticent at first, but it was served "carpaccio" which means it was very thinly sliced and it tasted like sweet smoked turkey.

For the meal I ordered a muputo chicken. It was half a chicken (which I could not eat most of) grilled with some wonderful spices which I do not know, but it was very good. Ed ordered the springbok stuffed chicken which I tasted too. It was a little dry. Springbok is a little antelope type animal. I hope to see many of them alive in the next week or so.

There were about 12 men and me for the majority of the time, but during the dinner the female finance officer joined us. She sat by me and she was delightful.....Gita is her name. She has four children ages 20 to 10 so we had a little to chat about. She is a Durbanite and loves it here.

The most fun came as the servers began doing the South African tranditional things that the place is known for. First of all they cam around with a wooden pitcher and bowl of warm lavendar water and had each of us wash our hands before the meal.

Then, as we were waiting for the meal another woman came around and painted our faces.....I had a little white flower....Ed did not allow anything painted on his face. When she was done with mine she had a little mirror so I could look at it. I told her it looked much better on her because my skin was too pale. She thought that was quite funny.

Toward the end of the meal the music started. It was very full of loud beat and really sounded more like Carribean music than African music but the servers, male and female, all walked around, with their trays or water or whatever they were carrying, to the beat of the music. They were swaying and rocking back and forth, some were singing along with themusic. They even had some of them go to the dance floor in the middle of the room and close to our table and dance. It was very fun.
I could not be still in my seat.

Gita loves to dance and she is quite good. Ahmer (from Egypt) and Gita went to the floor and started to dance and Ed got up and asked me to dance too. What could I do but go with him!!! hahahaha It was very fun.
The music kept getting louder and louder and the other people kept getting drunker and drunker and there was quite a show. Within no time at all I could not talk to Abdul El who was sitting next to me and certainly not to Ed across the table.

It was a great evening. I am hoping to go back over to Moyo's and see if I can buy the CD. They did play some music from local artists that I quite liked.

And that was my night at the Moyo!!