Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 2 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Go Jump in a Lake
By M. Giant | Season 19 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.06.2011
The music gets pensive along the two-hour drive down the road, and so does Marcus, who gets to VO a whole long speech about his thoughts and reflections prompted by the sights of Africa from the windows. Then the bus pulls into Salima, and it's chaos all over again. Everyone has to pile off with all their shit, into an equally chaotic scene at the terminal. Among the many sellers hawking their wares is a local guy bearing a big Speed Bump sign on a pole with Amani and Marcus's picture on it, like just another vendor. Needless to say it's one of the fresher signs in sight. Andy and Tommy are the first to get off the bus and find the woman with the regular clues, who's carrying them in a platter on her head under large cabbage leaves and a loaf of bread, as you do. After they open the clue, here's Phil to explain that in this Roadblock, one of them will need to use a bike taxi to ferry a fish-toting passenger to one of three addresses "written on the fish." Actually it's a tag that's attached to the fish. Have you ever tried to write on a fish? They don't like it. No wonder paper was invented. After making the drop-off, they'll bike back to the dispatcher and hand over the cash they earned from the trip. By the time Phil's done explaining this, racers are boarding the bikes. Laurence, Jennifer, Cindy (who doesn't enjoy getting close enough to the fish to read her address), Andy, Cathi and Sandy are doing this, and they hop on their bikes with the passengers behind them, pedaling right into traffic. Each of them gets a subtitle with their name in some ersatz "African" font next to a little icon of a fish. I'm glad to say that Cathi's poor balance doesn't betray her at a moment when a large truck is passing closely by her.
Amani and Marcus, already the last team off the bus, now have to do the Speed Bump. You know those cheap little slide puzzles with the little plastic tiles? There's one tile missing inside the frame, and then you slide the other tiles around to arrange them in the correct order to show a picture, or numbers or letters in order? Basically they have to do a larger, wooden version of that with Malawi's new flag on it, and that's their Speed Bump. They even get a real flag to use as the model. And it only has eleven tiles (three rows and four columns), so this is way easier than the one my dad brought from the airport with the alphabet on it when I was four. That thing ruled. Crap, I'm having a Proust-Madeleine moment right now, and I'm on deadline. Must focus. Amani gets right to work on it with Marcus kibitzing.