Good-bye to the Primitive Life
Mookie Lee never thought that a glass of water, a couch, and a mattress could look so good. But after spending 30 days on a primitive island, licking water off of plants, sleeping on the ground, and fighting an army of mosquitoes and flies, "I really learned to appreciate the small things in life," says Lee, a 2003 LAS graduate in actuarial science.
Lee had reached the Elite Eight in CBS's popular Survivor reality show. But he was recently voted off of the Fiji island game when his "Four Horsemen" alliance disintegrated.
According to Lee, the experience was wonderful and "I'd definitely do it again." But he says he was probably the unluckiest of the 19 players in the game. Because his teams never once won an "immunity challenge," he never received the winners' reward-time on Moto Island, where players were given hammocks, beds, couches, and a fabulous spread of food.
Instead, Lee was stuck the entire time on the formidable Ravu Island, where players had to find their own food and water. For the first seven days, they didn't even have water and had to find liquid nourishment from coconuts and by licking moisture from leaves. But on the seventh day, one of the players finally managed to use a pair of eyeglasses and the sun to start a fire, allowing them to boil water.
"If that hadn't happened, I don't know how much longer they would have let us dehydrate out there because it was so hot," Lee says. "We were lethargic. It was horrible."
With temperatures always over 95° F and sometimes as high as 110°, dehydration was a constant issue. In fact, the sun was so brutal that Mookie says it raised blisters on his shoulders and arms.
On a diet of coconuts, pineapple, crabs, and the fish that they (rarely) caught, Lee says he lost 25 to 30 pounds during his month on Ravu Island. But the toughest part was the bugs-and the lack of sleep, which tended to go hand and hand.
The mosquitoes nibbled and buzzed around them all night like "an Indy 500 around your ears," he says. As a result, the most that anyone ever slept at a time was one hour. And when the sun came up, he says it was like a day shift, as the mosquitoes vanished and an army of flies took over.
Despite the trials, Lee says, "it was just a great experience." In fact, he thought he had a good chance of going all the way toward the million-dollar prize. He and three other men had formed a Four Horsemen alliance, in which they promised to stick together to vote others off the island.
"Our plan was to stay true to each other, reach the Final Four, and then let the best man win," he explains. But when one of the four partners fed secret information to the opposing alliance, the Four Horsemen alliance collapsed.
To land a spot on Survivor, Lee says the producers came to him. They found his profile on MySpace and then contacted him out of the blue.
"I thought it was spam, but when I asked for a number, I followed up on it and found out it was legit," he explains. CBS flew him to Los Angeles, and within a couple of weeks he had been chosen for Survivor Fiji.
Since returning to Chicago after filming wrapped in December, Lee managed to get back his job as a project manager for an online loan company. He has also started his own charity, the Active Chicago Foundation, which uses dance and athletics to reach out to underprivileged youth. Their first big charity event will be held this July in Chicago.
If you attend, look for Lee. He'll be the one savoring a clear, clean glass of water.
