Our last night in Zimbabwe we went to La Boma, an outdoor restaurant with a floor show on the grounds of our hotel. A driver picked us up at the hotel and drove us over the extremely dark road to La Boma. Everything there was very primitive except for the food. There was a grill where a man grilled entire animals next to a large boma (metal pot) where you went to serve yourself soup in a miniature boma with a lid made of cast iron.
The dinner consisted of a lot of diferent local animals. I was content with the ribs, a large salad and my soup which was delicious. I am unable to eat animals when I've met one of their relatives, or if I have come across one in a zoo, so I just passed the exotic meats. Laura took a Mopane worm which we looked at and photographed, but did not try even if it is a crunchy delicacy in that part of the world.
The floor show was nothing to write home about. A handful of locals dressed in what was supposed to be authentic African garb pounded on the drums and jumped around a lot shouting. I guess I was expecting something a little more choreographed, but it was entertaining.
I preferred the story teller who passed from table to table telling tribal stories. He stopped at our table, and after asking permission to tell a tale, he told us how the people arrived in Zimbabwe. Then he stepped over the the next table and asked permission, but they denied it to him, so he went on to the next table. He was amusing.
And then came the highlight of the night, the fortune teller. He approached me and said that for $1 he would tell my fortune. Now how I can refuse that. So we walked over to his hut and went inside. We sat on the floor and he tossed the bones and then read them for me. It was funny, but he managed to do a pretty good job. Since I was there with another woman, and I wasn't wearing my wedding ring, I was surprised that he started off by saying that I had a very long marriage. I didn't indicate that he was right or wrong, and he went on to determine how many children I had. He had to throw the bones twice, and read them twice before he finally said he didn't understand what the bones were saying because he couldn't tell how many children I had. Well, since I don't have any children, that was the second good point in his favor. He went on to say that a bag of money was going to be arriving soon. Now since I've been home I've played the lottery more than I ever did before, but so far so bags of money are arriving.
On our way out of the place we stopped at their gift shop where we saw some very unusual items.
