Adventure with Bonaventure

I almost fell over laughing, Venture didn't think it was amusing at all.  But that's for later.  I hung out with my good friend Bonaventure last night.  Now Bonaventure, he's not your typical Russian, in fact, he's not Russian at all.  He's smart, good-looking (I guess, for a guy and all), dark.  Not that Russian guys can't be any or all of those...  Who am I kidding? Venture is from Tanzania, Africa.  We went to his university here in Moscow to watch some friendly competition - the Moscow University World Cup.  Waiting for the game between Tanzania and Cameroon, we shared some very intelligent conversation.  He wants to be a writer, and has some fascinating stories and great ideas.  So, naturally, we kicked around a few storylines and plot twists, and well as a few soccer balls.
After the game we decided to hit up some 'street ball' as he called it.  Well, for the next 3 hours I got beat-up, bruised and stepped on during my street ball 'experience'.  There was no street around, we were in the woods on a field of dirt!  Anyway, remind  Remind me to wear shoes next time I play with 'em. 
Anyway, to the funny part, we walked back to the metro around 11.00, still light outside by the way.  We were chattin just outside the metro when a witchy looking woman stopped and stared at us with her humongous, penetrating glare.  Frankly, she was creeping me out, but then I noticed she wasn't staring at us, she was staring at Venture.  He didn't notice until she had come within about 2 feet of him.  He looked petrified, too scared to move.  She reached her hand out from under her shawl (85 degrees and she's wearing a shawl) and slowly did the E.T. reach to Venture's forearm.  She touched it for about 2 seconds, shuddered, took a couple steps back, and as she turned, he asked her, in Russian, why she touched him.  She let out some kind of old-woman shreik, tripped over her own feet, and fell straight to the ground, and crawled away muttering, then pulled herself up and staggered away shaking her head.  I think it was the funniest thing I've seen in Moscow.  Yes, lady, there are black people, and yes, they are real, and a few of them are even intelligent enough to speak!  I'm still laughing about it.  I had a Russian missionary companion who had never seen a black person before I introduced him to a few that we were teaching, and yes, he wanted to touch them, too.