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Braving Survivor Sea Slugs and Samoa Rains with Ashley Trainer
by Troy Rogers
 The
latest episode of Survivor: Samoa saw mother nature
wreak havoc on the tribal gameplay as the Survivor
tribes found themselves holed up with each other
in close Samoa quarters to shelter themselves
from three days of torrential Survivor Samoa rains.
Although the tribes of Foa Foa and Galu ventured
out to compete in a gnarly food challenge that
saw Survivor Ashley Trainer choke back the innards of a sea slug,
it was back to camp to endure the rains of Samoa
where the Survivor tribe mates truly became survivors.
With barely any time to strategize outside of the Survivor: Samoa rains, and the makings of a future battle between Liz and Russell, the tribal council votes turned up Ashley who became the latest tribe member to get caught in the Survivor Samoa crosshairs.
The next morning after Ashley had her Survivor torch extinguished in Samoa, we grabbed our homemade Survivor buff and made for the phone lines where were caught up with Ashley Trainer to find out how she felt about her Survivor gameplay, the schemes of Russell, her alliance with Natalie, and whether she thought Russell impacted the Survivor Samoa challenges.
THE DEADBOLT: What do sea slug guts taste like?
 ASHLEY
TRAINER: [laughs] Okay, I'll try my best
to describe it. I mean, there's nothing to describe
how horrible these actually taste. But it's
like when you go to the ocean or and sea and
you smell like rotten fish and seaweed and then
multiply that. Then, on top of it, add some
chunks that you don't know what they are, because
I had to chew it. Then there were these random
chunks that I'd run into that I didn't know
what they were, and Jeff's sitting there going,
"Oh, my God! This is what everything goes through."
I'm like, "Oh, no." It was horrible [laughs].
THE DEADBOLT: What do you think of Russell after watching him on TV? I'm sure you had a different impression of him while you were there.
ASHLEY: I did. My impression of Russell changed dramatically. When I was there, obviously - I mean, I said in the last tribal council that I trusted him and then I get home and all of a sudden I'm seeing these commercials that Russell is dumping out our water and burning people's socks and he's calling us the dumb-ass girl alliance. It changed dramatically. I just could not believe the things he was saying about me. But I know it's a game and I just feel I don't really have anything to say to him in general.
THE DEADBOLT: So you haven't spoken to him since?
ASHLEY: Oh, no.
THE DEADBOLT: I was also surprised to see Natalie write your name down. Did that surprise you at all?
 ASHLEY:
It did and it didn't. I mean, the agreement
that I had with her was originally that we had
said to each other, if there was ever a time
in the game that we needed to vote for the other
person so we could stay strong, stay longer
in the game without putting a huge target on
our back, she had to vote for me to make sure
Russell, Mick, and Jaison and Liz still trusted
her. So I understand to a certain extent. I
mean, I don't know if I were to be put in that
situation what I would've done. I probably would've
done the same. But I would've thought it through
really hard to have her stay and rally against
someone else.
THE DEADBOLT: When we watched the episode last night, what didn't we see?
ASHLEY: You know, a lot happened in those couple days in taping. But honestly, we were in the shelter for three days straight. [laughs] I mean, we didn't do much, we really didn't. We didn't strategies because we were all huddled together. So that episode, everything that was important was shown. They didn't show us talking about food, which we do constantly. That's about it.
THE DEADBOLT: Do you think Russell was the main reason you guys lost so many challenges?
 ASHLEY:
You know, his strategy to make us weak was so
shocking to me. I don't know why we lost so
many challenges. I don't know if he purposely
did the things that he did in challenges to
make us slow down or screw us up. I don't know.
I just think, because of the combination, we
just weren't a really good [mix]. We just weren't
a good combination.
THE DEADBOLT: It's interesting that you say that, because it didn't seem like he was trying to throw any challenges. It looked like he was really trying.
ASHLEY: Right. Yes, I don't think he threw any challenges. But I just think in general we just weren't as strong as Galu.
THE DEADBOLT: And since there were no single guys on your tribe, did you change your strategy to try to fly under the radar?
ASHLEY: Even though there were no single guys, I didn't want to fly under the radar. Since I am huge fan of the show, I wanted to actually play the game. So I played the game as best I could with what I had to deal with.
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