Social club holds entertaining Hawaiian night
It may not have been 100% Hawaiian, and perhaps a native Hawaiian might not have recognised it at all, but we did manage a reasonable interpretation of a Luau in the Algarve!
The dancing was done in a tarmac carpark, not on a sandy beach, and behind it, we didn’t have the Pacific Ocean but the EN125 at night – but in its own way, it worked.
Months of planning and shopping for props paid off. Restaurant A Choupana, near Mexihoeira Grande, did us proud with an amazing feast of sardines, fish, chicken and leitão (suckling pig), accompanied by tasty salads and chips.
Following the main courses, the women (almost all of them spanning three generations) joined one of our committee (a dance teacher in a previous life) for a lesson in Hula dancing (rather like line-dancing) to the tune of ‘My Little Grass Shack’.
Following this was a demonstration of ‘Poi Ball Twirling’ (originally a Maori cultural tradition), which held us enthralled, and then for anyone who had remaining capacity, cake and ice-cream were served.
Since the pandemic, some of our events have seen relatively low attendances, but we were delighted when this evening was a sell-out and all 30 available spaces were booked.
Everyone had made an effort towards Hawaiian dress for the evening, including several ladies in grass skirts and some very colourful shirts on the gentlemen. The final ‘event’ of the evening was the awarding of prizes to the ‘most entertainingly’ dressed man and woman – the bottles of Malibu went to Avril and Roger.
An excellent evening’s entertainment, not only enjoyed by us but, as far as we could tell, also by the staff of A Choupana who had probably never seen anything quite like it! We send our thanks to Mónica and her staff for their hard work and support. We have already booked to do it all again next year!
Our next event will be a dinner to be held on July 7 at A Tasca restaurant, a few minutes north of Penina.
Event details and club membership available at www.casasocial.club
By NORMAN CROCKER
