First, Masiphumalele is a little bit scary and not known for it's fantastic restaurants. When we were driving thru, there was a lady actually selling deep friend chicken feet next to the road, point proven! But deep into Masi we drove.
Finally once we were about right in the middle of Masi and thoroughly uncomfortable with our surroundings Shelby exclaims "Here it is!" we al look around and didn't see anything that looked like a restaurant. He then points to a garage with it's door open... Oh, you mean the garage with 5 dogs in it? Yep! That is Novalosi!
My big kids wouldn't get out of the car. It really is quite intimidating to be deep in the heart of a township. While sitting in the car we saw a man hit a woman in the face, right in front of our car, next to the car to the right, were about 8 men who were drinking a lot of beer and smoking a joint. The whole street seemed more like a night club, but in broad daylight. Everyone was flirting with everyone else, music was blaring, the whole street was drinking... it was a big party!
Right in the middle of this daytime nightclub is Novalosi. All they serve is meat and something called pup, which is a bit like grits. Shelby ordered 4 steaks, 4 pork steaks and 8 chicken wings all for R120/$15...okay the price was impressive :)
The guy has a big braai/oven in the garage with hot coals in it and just cooks the meat there with a sauce. There were about 5 dogs wandering around licking the drippings off of the floor and one dog was asleep under the braai, where all of the firewood was. We waited for about 2hours. Shelby had a great talk with the "chef" about Jesus and church. We also met some American missionaries who are only here for a week and a local missionary brought them there to show them some African "culture". I've lived here for 2 years and this was my first encounter with Novalosi, I cant even imagine getting off the plane the night before and having lunch in the middle of that. Quite intimidating, but yes, full of "culture".
In conclusion, it ended up being kinda fun. We did get to see how the people in the townships "do" Sunday's. We got to witness a ton of stuff we dont usually see on a Sunday or any other day of the week. My kids ended up getting out of the car, toward the end, and got to experience something most people dont get to experience. We got to meet people we would have never met, we got to minister to people, meet and share with Americans, pet some fat township dogs and then after much waiting we got to have some really yummy meat!
Here are some pictures, all taken very sneaky sneaky on my camera phone! :)
This is the braai, where the meat is cooked over hot coals and our chef! Gabe watching.
This is the right side of the restaurant where you can sit and dine. There are long picnic tables to eat on and as you can see a couple hopeful dogs.
These are the gentlemen that were next to our car having a good ole time. Notice the houses, a corrugated metal shanty and across a clapboard house.
Some visitors from America talking with Shelby and Finley
