Lisa was friendly, chirpy and yet never seemed to grasp the issues that troubled so many viewers about her conduct in the show. She said she found the whole experience rewarding, but overwhelming.
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Prior to this, she'd never even been camping in her life and said she couldn't really believe that it was happening and that she was actually in Survivor.
I put it to her that in all the series I have reviewed, we have never ever seen a competitor who competed less, and who indeed seemed to be more earnestly trying to get voted of from the very start. Others have been more or less lazy, but none have flaunted their laziness so ostentatiously - lolling about while others worked.
Admitting her laziness
She said she felt she was being honest in revealing her comprehensive laziness; and by not pretending to be industrious. But this is a bit like a thief expecting approval for not hiding or suppressing his dishonesty. She felt that Mandla and Lorette disliked her personally from the very start, and that there was absolutely nothing she could have possibly done about that.
She's sure it wasn't only about their concerns about her apparent lack of work ethic. In fact, this is a typical theme which she returned to in response to several different questions - a sort of fatalism, not so much accepting whatever might happen, as feeling exempted from any need to do anything except wait to see whatever pre-ordained thing might happen to her next.
She said she entered the contest "for the whole experience" and she's very happy that she "got so much" from it.
Predicting the winner
She described Grant as "such a divine guy - we really clicked" and said she's very impressed with how well he was (and is) playing the game. She admired his claim to be in 17 alliances (which, when you think of it, is a remarkable number given how few people he could be allied to) and said "someone like that needs to win".
It’s puzzling as to why he used up some of his prestige and credit within the tribe in order to protect her – yet she said she thinks this is purely because she provided a reliable extra vote for him (or at least, a vote that would not be against him). But that hardly explains why he would risk losing the support of others, to promote the interests of herself.
I pointed out that he argued for her to be retained because she would be so powerfully effective in the challenges, yet in fact she took part in so few challenges (less than half of them). She insisted, as she did when Mark questioned her on this, that they only had "seconds to decide" such issues when each challenge was about to start. She insisted she was very annoyed at being omitted from these opportunities.
But why, then, did she not approach all the other members of the tribe between challenges, to plead her case and ask not to be sat out next time round? I tried approaching this question from several angles, but never got a clear reply.
Religion and the game
She described herself as "a very happy person, always smiling". To her, everything that happens is part of God's plan. There was a reason for her to be chosen to take part in the game and a reason for her to be voted out.
She claimed to feel proud of all she derived from taking part and found that she was not as emotionally strong as she thought - and more physically strong than she expected.
She went from boarding school to university, so, she admitted, she's really had very little life experience so far. This made Survivor a great opportunity for her to face a broader challenge and learn something more about life.
She said she was especially struck by the importance of little things she used to take for granted - the availability of clean water and food. "Three-quarters of South Africa lives in poverty" she told me and explained that while it may have been a temporary ordeal for the contestants in Survivor, "other people do it every day".
She said she now wants to get involved in some charity attending to the provision of such basic needs in this country and claimed that although she can't give it time or money, she would "lend my face", using some of the temporary celebrity she gained from the show, to draw attention to the need for such charitable work to be supported.
Final comments
She's proud of having lasted as long as she did within Survivor, and added that she felt she "passed the test" - in that life's a test to pass. When I asked what grade of pass she thinks she'd be awarded, she just laughed.
I asked again about that curious smile with which she responded to being always perilously on the line at tribal council, and commented that this made it look as though she relished the brinksmanship, the excitement of teetering on the edge of the cliff, but just not quite falling over it. She says she's just a smiley person, who "smiles all the time".
Though she is grateful to, and impressed by, Grant, I asked her who else she feels has a good chance of winning. She picked Dyke, having been very impressed by him while watching the series so far. And then, as someone who would like to become some sort of journalist, she moved on to further interviews, gaining more practical experience of being at the other side of the microphone.
(Professor M. A. Simpson, aka CyberShrink, October 2007)
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