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Beans and Betrayal in Brazil with Sandy Burgin of Survivor Tocantins
by Troy Rogers
 An interesting trend is developing on Survivor Tocantins that we haven't seen in previous seasons of the long-running CBS reality heavyweight. Although it's still early in the Survivor game down in Brazil, so far each cast off on Survivor Tocantins has been blind-sided and never saw their eviction coming before they went to Tribal Council. We have seen a lot of blind-sides in years past on Survivor, but the voting strategy in Tocantins is shaping up to be a season full of blind-side surprises. This week the trend continued as the Timbira tribe dealt Louisville, Kentucky bus driver, Sandy Burgin, a tribal surprise when her torch was extinguished.
Although Sandy was part of the major twist in the first episode of Survivor Tocantins when her tribe mates voted her off the show, only to see her head to camp ahead of them, the colorful and outspoken elder member of Timbira outlasted as long as she could before the youth movement took over the game.
The day after her eviction, we made our way to our own Tribal Council over the phone to reignite Sandy's Survivor torch long enough to find out what went wrong in Tocantins, whether she feels she was accurately portrayed on TV, and how much weight she could have put on her shoulders if she was chosen to participate in the weighted pole challenge.
THE DEADBOLT: When did you first realize that you were probably going to go home?
 SANDY BURGIN: Well, probably in the afternoon about an hour before we went to tribal council, because earlier in the day me and Taj and JT and Stephen were in the water and we were gearing towards Sydney. Then that afternoon, prior to leaving, JT was kind of avoiding me and I knew right then that they were going to vote me out.
THE DEADBOLT: How much do you miss snuggling up to Spencer?
SANDY: Oh, I miss him. [laughs] He was the only one that would snuggle-bunny with me. So since I turn like a rotisserie chicken when I sleep, I just turn all night long just like I’m cookin’, you know? And there weren't too many of them that wanted to sleep up next to me. But yep, Spencer, he did. So that wasn’t too bad.
THE DEADBOLT: Do you think you were accurately portrayed on TV?
SANDY: For the most part, yeah, probably. [laughs] I’m a nervous-type person. But I’m kind of hyper and crazy in a good sense, not mentally. I’m crazy in the aspect that I seize the moment in anything I do and I love adventure. So if they think that’s being crazy, that’s cool. So I must be a pretty crazy gal.
THE DEADBOLT: What was your overall strategy? Were you trying to form alliances or were you just kind of floating along?
 SANDY: Well, I kind of became hemmed in with Taj. She had told me after the first time at tribal that she would never write my name down, because she could see how strong I was in challenges and stuff. And I was strong every time we went and played one. So she said, ‘Oh, I won’t ever write your name down.’ So I tried to kind of hang in there with her and Stephen and JT.
THE DEADBOLT: How well do you think you would’ve done in the challenge with the pole and lifting the weight?
SANDY: I think that I would’ve probably could’ve held 140 pounds, probably.
THE DEADBOLT: Really? I would’ve like to have seen that.
SANDY: Yeah, because I trained so hard and my upper body strength was really really good. I lifted weights for three and a half months and I did some training that I felt I could’ve done really well. And mentally, if you could just focus on anything but that weight, I know you still have to have that stamina, but your mind can take your body places that you never thought it could go. So my mind strength is kind of scary. It really is, because I can do stuff that you would never think a person could do because I have that mindset.
THE DEADBOLT: Why couldn’t you outwit Sydney? Or did you just wait too long?
 SANDY: I don’t think I really tried to outwit her. The thing about it is that when we had discussed in the water, Taj made the statement that I was pretty, and I felt at the time that - You know, she already told me that she would never write my name down, and JT and Stephen were leaning toward Sydney, too. Actually, you’re correct. I waited a little bit too long because JT kind of started ignoring me but it was just a short time before we went to tribal council. So I didn’t have enough time to confirm, ‘Okay, we are voting for Sydney right? That’s who we’re voting for.’ So that probably was the case.
THE DEADBOLT: Did the beans make you fart a lot?
SANDY: Yes. [laughs]
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