“We Were Pretty Much Just Trying to Get By”: An Interview with Survivor: Guatemala’s Jim

Jim was only on Survivor: Guatemala for one episode, but he left a number of questions. Why did he vote for Margaret? Why were the men on Nakum so sick? What were his plans for the game? How is his arm doing? In this interview with RealityNewsOnline, he answers these and more.

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Jim, and thanks for taking the time to answer these questions for RealityNewsOnline’s readers. What was your original plan before you arrived in Guatemala?

Jim: My plan was to be the provider and the leader for the group throughout the entire trek, which I did until [I] got hurt.

RNO: If you hadn’t injured your arm, do you think you could have made it past the first vote to show your tribe what you could do?

Jim: I was quite satisfied in my own mind that I could have gone past the first vote because I had the leadership, wisdom, and map skills that comes out in those situations.

RNO: What did your tribe choose to bring with on the hike, what did they leave behind, and looking back would you have done it any differently?

Jim: When we chose the fruit, we chose pretty poorly. There’s no way I would have chosen the bananas as oranges would be the better choice because they contain more water. The bananas were MUSH by the time they got through the trek. If I had to do it over again, we would have taken more oranges.

RNO: Why were so many of the guys on your tribe getting sick while the women didn’t and the other tribe seemed okay?

Jim: You know I hate to answer a question with a question but… what did the four of us men eat that nobody else did? Why didn’t the men on the other tribe get as sick as the men on Nakum? Why didn’t the women get sick at all?

RNO: We saw a lot of vomiting and very little plotting in your tribe. Was there any deal-making going on that you knew of, or was it mostly just the healthy figuring out which of the injured should go?

Jim: There was very little plotting. We were so focused on just trying to make it through. We were all looking out for each other and after Blake got hurt, we focused on him but then others began to get sick and vomit. The heat really took us down. We were pretty much just trying to get by… and therefore very little plotting was done.

RNO: You voted against Margaret – considering that she was basically running an emergency room for your tribe, why did you write down her name?

Jim: The thing with Margaret was that I couldn’t abstain and I couldn’t vote for myself so I wanted to vote for someone randomly and unfortunately she was the one that I chose out of the group. She was one of the strongest players and would be a tough competitor and if I remained would be tough competition.

RNO: How long did it take for your arm to heal?

Jim: Still rehabbing the arm, not a whole lot better but trying to get it back to normal.

RNO: If you had stayed around, do you think your arm would have been okay, or would have essentially been at 50%?

Jim: I don’t think that my arm would have gotten better and depending on your right arm may have been worse. You get no support at all for those injuries and therefore I probably would have remained 50% or less as the challenges would only have gotten harder.

RNO: How did you feel about having previous players in the game?

Jim: I have nothing against either of them and Bobby Jon is a hard worker but nothing personal, throwing them into the mix only worsened the competition for us bringing the total number from 16 to 18.

RNO: Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers about your time in the game?

Jim: The whole sickness thing just really… the arm… and the bad water that I got didn’t hit me until Tribal Council. The bad water that I got from Judd made me feel horrible. I didn’t know if I was going to make it down the steps because I was just so dehydrated and the whole Tribal Council was spinning.

RNO: Thanks again, Jim!

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other Survivor: Guatemala Episode 1 articles:

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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