Tonight’s Survivor SA will be without the Hein and Dyke twosome who got booted out of Malaysia last week when Hein lost the showdown challenge to Lorette and Dyke got targeted and voted out for being a physical threat.
After events unfolded last Wednesday I went to Jozi to hook up with them at a special M-Net double whammy press conference and followed up by doing an interview with each of them - which is when I took Hein’s pony pic.
The pair aren’t allowed to talk to each other until after the show so each of them arrived and left the press conference separately and weren’t allowed to chat between themselves when they were interviewed.
I spoke to Hein first and then Dyke and snooped out questions both about the show and about what went down in the press conference. Hein’s interview here and you can find Dyke's here: Survivor SA Interview:
Dyke Higginson.
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Of course the main topic for Hein from the press was whether or not he deliberately mistimed the challenge. He spoke about the fact that he never wears a watch and always knows the time and wouldn't commit to an answer. I grilled him on it more when I caught up with for us natch - here’s what he had to say:
Tashi: I don’t believe that you threw the countdown because I tried it and took 52 seconds so it can definitely happen.
Hein: Well if you test me now I’m sure I’ll stop within two seconds of 30.
Tashi: Yes let’s do that.
(Does the countdown - under my watchful eye - and ends on 30 seconds on the dot.)
Tashi: Spot on??
Hein: You must remember I’ve been a commercial diver so I have to know time.
Tashi: So then you did throw it.
Hein: Maybe.
Tashi: There’s no maybe about it.
Hein: What the camera’s didn’t portray is that I really spent fours five a day - before the camera crews arrived in the day - I was already in the water trying to find food. I provided whichever tribe I was with two meals every day and then I still had to cook all the food and do the challenges. Also, for that specific episode - I think the Tribal Council was only at about 1 o’clock in the morning and I was pretty tried. When I knew it was split between us - I had two decisions: either I’m going to count and go a long way or I’m going to put my finger on 30.
Tashi: So what made you decide not to put your finger down on 30?
Hein: Lorette put hers down on 30.
Tashi: What you’re saying is you didn’t want to win.
Hein: No no - I can’t tell you right now - I’ll tell you at the end of the show whether I fell asleep.
Tashi: Why’d you choose Lorette to go up against instead of Mandla?
Hein: I knew I was gonna come up because everybody told me I would - I got everybody together who was in my original tribe and told them, “Listen ladies, the strongest lady in the tribe is Lorette so if she goes you two have a better chance of winning at the immunity challenges.”
Tashi: But if you’d gone for Mandla it would have been the same situation.
Hein: Ja but the women would have been one up again. If she’d gone it would have been four guys to three girls.
Tashi: So the girls all just went along with you without questioning it?
Hein: Ja they went along with it.
Tashi: Did any of them challenge you at all? Which of the chicks challenged you the most and wanted to be a leader instead of a follower?
Hein: I’d say Lorette - you could see it even when she was part of the old Iban tribe - she was the first one that jumped into the water and caught the first fish and tried things and she made a fish trap – nothing worked but she tried and stood out. From the first day to the last day I didn’t see Angie do anything on the island. Nothing - I think in the second episode she tried to chop a cocobut and the rest of the time she spent in the water.
Tashi: Are you pleased you and Dyke got separated like you did?
Hein: No that completely put a spanner in our works. Before the tribal shuffle we were four/three up and then all of sudden I was three/four down again. It was very difficult to come back from that.
Tashi: In the press conference you mentioned that you live out in the wild - where exactly do you live?
Hein: I live in a place called Mpukani (sp?)- myself and my wife are the only two white people amongst two thousand blacks. We’re the only official white members of the community - I’m a rural developer with a company called (can’t hear name) and we invest a lot of money in areas like that and then train people. Right now I’m training people to build furniture - we’re giving training to people who don’t have official skills and train them to make money for the community. It’s about 35km’s outside Mozambique and it’s right next to the sea.
Tashi: Why didn’t you enter the first season of Survivor?
Hein: I was in Zambia - I only got a TV a week before this Survivor started. Before that I didn’t have a TV for two and a half years - I never watched TV, I never read the newspapers - it’s not important to me. I live in the bush and the people I talk to are rural people. People don’t know how to live properly anymore - they’re so consumed by big houses and money and things like that - I chucked all that seven years ago - I had two businesses - my own building company and training company. Myself and my wife sold everything we had, even our old clothes, and bought a combi and travelled for a year.
Tashi: In the press conference you said that you’ve been out of the country and that you thought racial issues were over and that you noticed they weren’t in the show. What did you mean?
Hein: I left just after the war ended - if you want to call it that - I was in the army for many years and I decided to leave and look for my piece of paradise somewhere else in Africa. Over the past few years I’ve been all over Africa doing remote Safari’s and I’ve built lodges all over Namibia and in the dessert and I really thought that South Africa had become independent and I thought that the young people of today - because they didn’t grow up in the old apartheid regime - so why would there be any colour issues?
Also seven years ago I travelled 50 000 km through South Africa and everybody was just nice - that was more in the rural areas - there were no racial issues or anything like that. For me it was very strange on the show - the comment that Dyke made, that sparked it off - what wasn’t portrayed on the show was that Elsie did go on a little bit more about racial issues.
She also, at one point, mentioned that I was also racist - it’s the last thing I am in my life, I’m dedicating my life to training people of other colours, I see no difference between myself and them - maybe years ago I was different but today I believe 100% that every single person has exactly the same rights as me: colour, creed or sexual orientation, it really doesn’t matter to me today. It actually went on for a quite a while - niggling conversations and comments surrounding that one incident that sparked a big debate.
The comment was actually - “We’ve got two ladies of colour in our tribe who can’t swim for *bleep!*,” and then it was ripped out of proportion that it was said that black people can’t swim. He never said that and maybe he was wrong for saying it, especially on a show, but if they’d said that to me I’d have laughed it off, believe me, or tried harder or something but I wouldn’t have pulled the racial card and said that because I’m a different colour you’re trying to make me a bad person.
Tashi: But it obviously happened because Dyke brought up colour.
Hein: Ja but I thought it wouldn’t happen - if he’d said it to Mandla he’d laugh it off because he’s older and he’s a lot more mature in these issues - I think probably immaturity - and then my personal opinion is that it shows a flaw in the character actually - it shows a weak part of your character if people want to still take that route that happened 20, 30, 40 years ago.
Tashi: Maybe people want to have the debate - maybe it’s important. Once that issue was out of the way in the tribe they ended up getting on well - it’s like they had to go through that to get to a different place together.
Hein: No I don’t agree - it’s been how many years? How many years has South Africa been independent? I mean it’s 13 years, people should laugh about things like that, there shouldn’t be a heated debate, that’s my opinion anyhow.
Tashi: Did things change in the tribe afterwards?
Hein: Ja of course - after we had that conversation. I actually said to Elsie we shouldn’t have had that conversation because we were people from all walks of life put together. Racial issues can spark a big problem and it almost did become a big thing, that’s why the tribe was completely split and if you’ve got a tribe split in a show like Survivor you’re digging your own grave.
Tashi: I think it showed that people are sensitive - if the comment had been something like: “Chicks who dress up can’t swim,” it would have been different.
Hein: It’s only in South Africa that it happens - if you go to Zambia or Namibia - if you go to all other African country’s people laugh it off. It’s only in South Africa that people get offended by their colour. I think maybe in America it’s like that too but if you made the joke in Namibia people would make ten jokes back.
Tashi: Why did you enter Survivor? What made you fill in the forms and send them off?
Hein: A simple reason - I watched three episodes of the previous one. I was in Zambia and I came out to Lusaka for two weekends ad the people I stayed with - the people had a TV and it was near the end of the show. The one I watched - I think it was the episode that Nico left in – and they had absolutely nothing. Then I watched when Vanessa left and said “Oh I want to go home,” and then she came back and won Survivor. To me it was very strange that a person who wanted to go home eventually came back and was called the ultimate Survivor so I said “Listen guys, I want to go and show that it’s not that difficult to survive and to have a little bit of fun.” Even though I haven’t won, I’ve accomplished my goal.
Tashi: You could do everything when it came to survival - what did you find the toughest thing out everything?
Hein: The people - I knew from the beginning it was going to happen when you put different people on an island. Getting to know the people. I come from a very honourable background, if you want to call it that, with my army buddies, we absolutely had to have honour and faith in each other because sometimes it meant life or death for us and that was for many, many years. I’ve actually been burnt a couple of times like that because I thought everyone was like that.
That was the moment I hated most in Survivor - when Rijesh and Nichal turned around. If they’d said nothing when we went up it would have been okay but to look me straight in the eye and when they went like this (gesture to show everything’s fine) - to me that was a little wrong, that’s why I called them a couple of names, I think it was “a bunch of wankers.” (laughs).
Ends