Marketing Manager Mandla Mbau finished fourth in last week's Survivor Malaysia showdown after being the first of the final four to wobble out of the balancing challenge.
When I chatted to him on Friday morning afterwards, he wasn't feeling as island fit as per - he said he was recovering from overdoing things - meaning too much
partying natch. Here's what he had to say about his final moments:
Tashi: Chat about that stupid balance beam challenge for a bit. I didn’t like that it all came down to a balance like that.
Mandla: I think the construct of Survivor and the engineering of the game makes it completely unpredictable. While you may be controlled in your normal life, in Survivor it’s up to the elements and the nature of the game so I have no issues that it was up to the balancing game to determine to the final immunity. Also, the game’s are chosen before the contestants get there so there can’t be any bias.
The thing that became very ironic was that I can balance quite well on my left foot because I’ve had to compensate quite well all my life because of the injury - but that challenge required your toes to hug the pole which my right foot couldn’t do and it required you to shift your weight between both feet which I couldn’t really do. Most of my weight, all of the time, was on my left side.
That was one of the most difficult moments I think, in my life - to come so close to something and know that I had equal or better balance as the best balancing person in the final but it was physically impossible to go beyond a certain. It was very difficult to accept. What actually happened was that about ten minutes before I fell off I said, “Look Mark, I can’t do this anymore,”
I almost went into tears while standing there but the point being - I had to concede. I thought to myself: “Okay Mandla, maybe your journey in this game was meant to end here, like this. Maybe my presence came earlier, which was the biggest reward or value I could have expected from the show, which was to meet my family so unexpectedly in such a funny situation, my mom and my sister. And the skiing trip, which maybe I didn’t really need, but it came my way. Perhaps those were my gifts that came early and the final ultimate prize was supposed to go to somebody else, which is just the nature of the universe.
Tashi: How long did you balance for?
Mandla: I think, an hour and 25 minutes or an hour and fifteen minutes. So many things happened after I fell that it was hard to keep track of things.
Tashi: And the tears - was it a mixture of physical and emotional pain and frustration?
Mandla: Most of it was emotional pain ‘cos the physical pain - I only discovered just how painful it was when I tried to walk and I couldn’t and they didn’t show the whole drama of Mandla crying on the beach - it went on for quite a while (laughs) -
Tashi: (laughs) The injury - what happened to your foot?
Mandla: You know, I try not to draw to much attention to it because it’s not an excuse. Before I talk about it I want to say congratulations to all the Survivors, Grant and Lorette deserved to be there - they outlasted everybody and Lorette is the ultimate winner - end of story - there’s no excuses. Hein, who was the most capable of all of us, exited earlier than most people - that’s the nature of Survivor. In the case of my injury, it’s not an excuse, that was the challenge we faced and I couldn’t outlast and endure and life goes on and I had a fantastic experience.
To answer your question - I sustained it when I was six years old - I was playing in the veld and a milk bottle severed my tensions. All my tendons and muscles were torn cleanly and of course I went to hospital but instead of doing an X-ray they just stitched me up again and didn’t ralise my tendons were cut. A few years later we noticed a bit of a deformity and I went to see about surgery but by that time the tendon had shrunk. It wasn’t too serious so the doctors said, “Let this guy go on with his life, he’s very sporty, he doesn’t feel pain - he can do it later when he’s maybe 21.”
Then when I was 21 I had to head off to ‘varsity and they said I could do it at 30 and I can’t remember where I was at 30 so the injury went to the back of my head as I went on with my life but it finally caught up with me in the game. In that last challenge, I reached my limit - whatever helped me compensate previously in the challenges where balance was needed was just not enough in that challenge.
Tashi: You came face to foot with putting off going to the doctor. How did it happen that you and Lorette got so thick as thieves?
Mandla: Simple. The only way you can discriminate among strangers on an island in a game like this that early on was to use the issue of contribution to tribe. For me it was: who’s earning their right to stay here and be fed? Who looks like they’d lay their lives down when it’s time to go to war?
For me my strategy was to say: “Guys, the war isn’t internal - it’s against the rival tribe on the other island. If we continue to beat them we’re okay - we can relax and enjoy the island and let them have the headache.”
It was quite interesting that you did have some characters who were so in awe of the experience of Survivor that they forgot about the contribution to tribe aspect - Lisa was one of them. Then you have active members like Irshaad who was always trying - I think he caught one of the first fishes. I’m quite industrious and always have energy and I’m a competitor and Lorette exhibited all those traits. She was quickly saying things like, “Let’s make a fish trap.”
I mean I couldn’t like Lorette because I don’t know her - and as individuals in South Africa we’re quite different. We live very polarized lives - she’s in a small town in Middelburg, I grew up in Johannesburg, from Soweto, I’ve travelled a hell of a lot, which she hasn’t so there was no affinity based on anything else other than: “Here’s a person who’s efforts help me to stay strong in this game,” and she did catch a fish that we all shared so that was really the connection and it just stayed like that.
Of course being a police officer and then understanding a bit of her character and her saying “You know Mandla, trust is a thing for me and in a game like this I’m not sure who to trust etc.” - we had some of those conversations - I picked up “Okay, this is a straightforward, wholesome values type of person.”
The other thing that I think was similar, I wasn’t that interested in the money, that’s one. Secondly I was less interested in the social manipulation manoeuvering side of the game because I felt maybe that’s an easy part to do. The part I was really interested in was: ”Here’s an island, how’s Mandla going to respond to the environment?" I think Lorette had the same thing - she camps a lot, she’s done a lot of outdoor stuff but Survivor’s a different proposition.
Tashi: As things went along - who did you think was gonna win?
Mandla: For me I think Dyke stood out a little bit more than Hein because I always felt that everyone would gang up against Hein in whatever tribe he ended up in. With Dyke I felt he had access to other members, like Angie, who wasn’t part of the friction that took place. I thought Dyke had a good chance.
Up until the merge, I must say I was almost prepared to settle for making it to the jury but after we merged I thought, “Okay I think you can go all the way.” That’s why some of my performances started to kick in and I was able to do well because there was a lot more at stake and I executed much better than I could in the first half of the game.
Tashi: If you could do anything differently, what would you change?
Mandla: I think I would be less preoccupied with competing hard and wanting to fight to the death and go all the way by using my physicality to get me there. I think I’d be a lot more relaxed - part of the reason I didn’t take part in many dialogues is because I didn’t want to starve completely and I didn’t want to rely on anyone else to provide anything for me so I was always out chopping wood or roasting coconuts so I didn’t have a lot of time to play games behind the scenes.
I’d spend more time doing a little bit of what Grant was doing, you know - setting up traps and exploring different avenues in terms of the people and the social side and I think having a little more fun. One thing that didn’t come out - and that was me holding back - Mandla’s actually a fun, bubbly guy who tells jokes and does silly things at times and can be eccentric as well so I’d introduce more humour and light heartedness and not position myself as “Hey I’m strong and physical,” rather use that to my advantage when it counts.
Tashi: What’s your advice to future Survivor players?
Mandla: I think the obvious thing is - it’s not as easy as it looks. Having said that, it’s a unique opportunity to have an amazing experience and meet very interesting people. From my point of view Survivor’s much more than the superficial things like physical strength or being a dominant vocal character who articulates well.
I felt that Dyke maybe didn’t always express himself well or think carefully about what he was saying but he had a great ability to adapt to circumstances which was apparent in the challenge Protect The Challenge. He ducked down so the bags couldn’t reach him whereas I just wasn’t quick enough to think like that. I know I’m fast and thought I’d miss them but he thought to bend down.
It requires thinking and you need to apply intellect. You also have to listen very carefully to the instructions in the challenges too because so many times things go wrong because people aren’t listening, they got too excited. I mean I fumbled in many of the challenges because I got carried away.
I was like “Oh wow, check we’re leading,” and “Awesome we’re gonna kick ass today,” and then it was “Oh Gosh it’s my turn! ” and I’d just jump into the water. I got caught up in the moment. But you know, I loved those challenges Tashi and I was having a great time. Even when I fumbled some of the things, I was always laughing at myself.
Ends