This past week Survivor Mzi Tyhokolo spent the episode saving Horse on
Dead Man’s Island while waiting for the chance to return to the game - which I’m convinced he will.
As the final countdown of the show happens over the next three episodes there’s just noo ways that karma will hold back the person who’s kicked such butt Surviving by fishing for the lazies.
On Wednesday morning past I caught up with him to snoop out as much hott goss for us as I possibly could:
Tashi: Many of the ladies on TVSA are finished for you and I’ve been very firmly instructed to ask if you’ve got a girlfriend.
Mzi: Well, I’m seeing someone in a way. It’s just one of those little things that’s fairly new. Someone I’m looking at with an interesting eye. That’s as much as I can say about my being hitched or not.
Tashi: So you’d say she’s your girlfriend?
Mzi: Haha – I … iii eeee. Ja.
Tashi: Is it somebody that you’ve met since you’ve been in Survivor?
Mzi: I’ve known them for a while.
Tashi: So what made it happen after Survivor?
Mzi: Sometimes things just casually laze along. You can’t put your finger on them and then with time they take on a certain meaning and you could refer to them as something.
Tashi: So it’s not somebody who’s in Survivor?
Mzi: Oh
no, most definitely not.
Tashi: That’s a very decisive answer.
Mzi: It comes after a lot of speculation like: “You get stuck with Brigitte on an island, why is Vanessa crying for you?”
Tashi: So are either or both of them in love with you?
Mzi: Aaah, hehe, it’s difficult to judge. Unless a person really makes it blatantly obvious … we were all close and tolerant of each other, especially later in the game, so that could have created the impression that somebody might like you a bit more than another guy but I wouldn’t go to the extent of saying anybody was in love with me.
Tashi: Have you ever been in love?
Mzi: Ever, ever, ever? Yes.
Tashi: How many times? As in 1, 2, 3, 4 times?
Mzi: Jeeez, well, a couple of times. I always refer to having been really in love with my first girlfriend. That was an uncalculated, unanalyzed, unadulterated love.
When you see somebody in high school and they’re the best thing in the world. That’s one of my most very clear, vivid loves. I still remember those days with some serious smiles on my face when I’m thinking about it.
Tashi: What was her name?
Mzi: Her name was Mamelo. She was very beautiful. But since then, I dunno, maybe once or twice.
Tashi: Would you say that you ultimately blame Nico for your downfall with his losing that challenge before the tribes merged?
Mzi: Yes, there’s no two ways about it. There was a time when Brigitte said: “Nico jumped,” and I said: “Maybe not, “but I watched the episode and Nico takes two distinct steps.
When I looked at him and asked: “Let’s pull guys,” he looks, takes two steps to the edge and jumps into the water. So yeah, he caused us the challenge.
Tashi: Why would he have done that?
Mzi: I don’t think it’s in his spirit to hold on for on longer. I think he was faced with a choice - it’s a case of what everybody felt during the game: do you dig into your spirit and really find that extra energy and motivation and pull that out and use it or do you just quit? He copped out. We only had to hold on for twenty more seconds. Was it that much to ask to just hold on for twenty more seconds?
Tashi: You’re constantly going on about Gareth having no backbone. Surely, if you were in his position you’d have done the same thing. Why should he have sided with you, his greatest threat, instead of the girls?
Mzi: I wouldn’t have done the same thing if I were him and that’s an honest opinion. What I’d offered him was a long-term plan which almost guaranteed his survival longer in the game than what's guaranteed now.
When I showed it to him he saw it that way and agreed with me but then when the so-called girls turn around and say: “No,” he forgets what we talked about. It really could have stood him in good stead but he goes with what the girls say.
Tashi: Was it a final two agreement that you discussed?
Mzi: It was final four that included me and Zayn and him. As to who the fourth person was, I had a couple of tricks up my sleeve.
Tashi: Vanessa.
Mzi: A very fair assessment.
Tashi: Let’s say he’d done that, by the time you got to the final four he’d have to face you, a much tougher competitor than the girls.
Mzi: It would have made for a very competitive and open game in terms of Survivor. It’s what I believe the game should be. I would definitely have done it if I was in his position - not because I was on the receiving end but I would have liked the bigger challenge.
Call Zayn a whatever at times but he said something when he said: “I want to fight openly and with honour and compete against the best.” That’s one line I’ll take with me and I thought if that same spirit was in Gareth … I've tried my best to play it like that.
Tashi: You said he was a bigot - what did you mean?
Mzi: It was about the girls. I was actually referring to Lezel. Lezel had an ability of speaking to you when it suited her and being very nice and everytime you wanted to speak to her about possible alliances and whatnot she’d say she’s got an agreement with the Rana tribe and whadda whadda fishpaste but “you’re a nice person hey” and that she’s got her integrity and crap like that.
Then she turns around after a decision has been made and she flips just like that and starts scheming and getting everybody to change. To me that’s like you’re singing integrity on the one hand and on the other hand you’re the cheap schemer, so
hello. Practice what you preach. She was very nice to me when it suited her and when she didn’t feel too threatened.
Tashi: So what you’re saying is that she was your worst out of all of them?
Mzi: At least the other people revealed what they were about. You get a person like Jacinda who’d say: “Let’s not beat around the bush, this is nothing. It’s a game, I want to stay here longer. If I want to improve my chances and I have to, I’ll vote for you.” It’s different with Lezel, she’d be all smiley, happy, let’s chitter-chat.
Tashi: Watching these last three weeks when Aguila arrived at the merge with three - why didn’t you strategise and
do more? Everyone’s said “Ja, we tried to save ourselves,” but I don’t believe that. It didn’t feel like you had this fierce determination where you spent every waking moment trying to wheel and deal to save yourselves.
Mzi: At the stage we were at, when you try to forge alliances or agreements, it was a case of: you don’t wanna look desperate. I’ve seen it, it doesn’t look good. It got to a point where Sam got too desperate and you become a clown. You don’t want to get there. The only thing I’d say is that the hard work behind it all was maybe not captured on the actual episodes but I spent a lot of time with Zayn.
I created scenario’s with Zane and Gareth while the girls were trying to work on one of the other girls. Our strategy was that I was supposed to flip Zayn first and the girls were supposed to get one of the other girls. We kept hitting the same wall.
Tashi: Exile Island’s just started and those people are already spending every moment going beserk and the same thing didn't happen with you guys. Especially with getting Zayn - he’s been bordering on the edge for ages and yet you didn’t turn him.
Mzi: Zayn would be standing with me while I was fishing for 45 minutes, there’s only so much you can talk about with him besides trying to convince him to come with us so I did, but the footage looks like yet another of my fishing expeditions rather than me trying to turn him.
It got to a point where Zayn was like: “Look I’m keen but Rana breaks up when we get to the top four so if you can win immunity until the top five, then we can start doing something.” There was some serious strategizing, it’s just that it didn’t come through as much as we hoped it would.
Tashi: Dead Man’s Island - you seem to be having a blast there. Did you enjoy it?
Mzi: Paradiso! You had two choices: sit and mope and moan - it’s what it’s good for ‘cos there’s nothing else to do - or you embrace the sea and the environment and shut up and find something to do, even if it’s to sit and count the twigs. I sort of did that and it paid off. The fish I was pulling out was worth the hard, boring few days I spent there.
Tashi: You were obviously relieved when you heard you had another chance?
Mzi: Oh ja. I think that’s also what made me at peace more.
Tashi: How important was the money to you?
Mzi: Whew, for me to say a million rand isn’t important to me would be a blatant lie. The money’s so important - it would change my life in a variety of ways. I’m still the provider for my family. My mother doesn’t work and my two brothers are still at school - a million rand would can go a very long way.
My brother’s university fees would pretty much be guaranteed and my mother could retire. She is retired but she could retire from being a beneficiary from my salary every month but more importantly, in terms of taking life forward, I have aspirations - I would love to be a medical doctor. A paediatrician.
A big portion of the money would take care of my immediate needs and afford me the opportunity of going back to university without having to worry about who’s taking care of my family.
There’s nothing that beats a kids smile when you make a pain better and they say: “Thank you Dr Mzi,” and they run off. I’d also want to invest some of it and make a youth project a beneficiary to the investment so it’s a sustainable type of income.
Tashi: Why didn’t you study medicine when you went university previously?
Mzi: Look, I was young at university. I used fears and phobias to hold me back from my dreams in terms of studying. More importantly I needed to start work soon. For me to have been at school for another seven years, my mother would have probably died trying to sustain the other two boys.
That’s why I studied science, in particular chemistry, so that if I got the opportunity to go back I could get more credits with that. Also, when I was a kid I was a bit afraid of blood.
You know, the township, you sit there and you think: "Somebody just got shot and they're going to say, 'Dr please fix me.'" Thinking that was scary. Of course that's changed and I’ve grown braver.
Tashi: Did anyone at any point realize and talk about the fact that Brigitte didn’t return to listen in as the jury? Nobody’s mentioned that at all yet.
Mzi: When Brigitte had been voted off, the next morning me and Vanessa were sitting thinking “Brigitte said she wanted a burger and boerie roll,” we hope they have wors in Panama ‘cos she’s sitting there waiting for the jury. We thought of her staying a whole week in the hotel and what fun it would be.
Tashi: So what happened when you saw Brigitte didn’t arrive at Tribal Council? They’re down to four and no-one’s mentioned that no-one’s come back. Was this discussed at all?
Mzi: No. I hadn’t watched a lot of Survivor before so I didn’t know which stage people on the jury would come back. I’d read in the contract that the jury might be briefed about what’s going on to keep them in the loop so I thought it was a possibility they'd get tapes at the hotel or something.
Tashi: So, what’s your girlfriends name?
Mzi: No, I cannot tell you.
Tashi: Will we spot you with her?
Mzi: Very unlikely.
Tashi: Why are you hiding her?
Mzi: I’m not hiding her. It’s pointless for me to be seen all happy-happy, lovey-dovey and next thing we discover maybe it wasn’t to be. I think it’s a protection of the people that I hold dear to me, until they want to be in the public.
I made the choice to be on Survivor and I live with the repercussions but that doesn’t have to be with people who don’t want to go through the same nonsense. Some people value their privacy more than others.
Tashi: Well, you do know that you’re going to be snapped with her at some point.
Mzi: Put it this way, you can snap me. I have a few friends who are females.
Ends