Benji

Tribe(s): Boran, Samburu, Moto Maji
Finish: 6/24
Days Lasted: 36

Benji is a contestant from *Survivor: Africa*.

## Survivor: Africa

Benji began *Survivor: Africa* originally on the gold Boran tribe. A number of smaller alliances were formed on Boran over the course of the first few days and Benji wanted to ensure he was well connected within this tribe. He was apart of the five person Boran Alliance with the pairs of Fenella and Shonee, Tegan and Heath. He then created a trio with David and Sharn, before uniting these two groups together to create a majority alliance of seven. When Boran lost their first immunity challenge on Day 6, Dean was voted out after Benji's alliance split the votes between him and Ethan. Whilst Boran won the following two immunity challenges, Benji was concerned that he was in a five person alliance with two pairs. On Day 12, both Boran and Samburu were told they would be attending a Double Tribal Council. After telling the minority alliance to vote for Shonee, Benji told David, Palesa, Sharn and Shonee that Tegan was the one who tried to rally the minority against Shonee. At tribal council, Benji and his group of five had the numbers to blindside Tegan.

At the tribe switch, Benji was switched to the red Samburu tribe along with Fenella, Heath, Sharn and Shonee whilst joining original Samburu members Emily, Lance, Ryan and Sarah. With one pair now separated, Benji set his sights on splitting Shonee and Fenella who were affectionately known as Shonella. At Samburu's first loss on Day 14, Benji and Sharn told the original Samburu Four they would all be safe if they voted for Fenella. The original Boran players planned on voting for Sarah, but Benji and Sharn switched their votes to Shonee at the last minute so that Fenella would be voted out by Samburu. This move caused some tension between Benji and the rest of the Boran castaways, but they agreed to remain united to eliminate Lance and Emily on Days 16 and 20 respectively. During this time, Benji grew closer to Sharn to the point where she told him when she found the Samburu Hidden Immunity Idol. The pair were then informed by David at the Day 22 immunity challenge that he received the Boran idol from Heath. Benji wanted to exploit the fact that Heath made himself vulnerable when Samburu lost on Day 24, leading to Heath being unanimously voted out.

On Day 25 and with only twelve castaways remaining, Benji made the merge. Despite their differences throughout the pre-merge, the original Boran castaways agreed to work together for the time being because of their 7-5 majority. However, Maria soon told the Boran castaways that Palesa was trying to force a 6-6 tie by flipping to work with Samburu. As a result, Benji voted with Boran and their new ally Maria to blindside Palesa at the first merged tribal council. The Borans used their numbers advantage to split the votes between Curtis and Ryan but a tied vote occurred between Curtis and David, who Samburu voted for. Though Benji voted for Curtis as Boran planned, Ethan and Sophie switched their vote to eliminate David. After laying low since the merge, Benji found the Moto Maji idol and decided that now was the time for him to make a big move. He convinced Samburu that he wanted to work with them to blindside Sharn but then told Sharn of this plan in order to force her to play her idol at tribal council. This meant that Sarah was voted out with the second highest number of votes from Boran.

Benji was pleased with his big move and the fact that he held the only idol left in the game. However, he decided to lay low for the time being to avoid painting a bigger target on his back. Benji voted with the majority of Boran to eliminate Shelby, Curtis and Ryan at the following three tribal councils. This brought Benji to the Final Six with his tight trio of Sharn and Shonee, and his larger alliance of Ethan and Sophie. After Shonee won individual immunity, the original Boran agreed to vote for Maria as the last remaining Samburu player. However, Benji wanted his trio and Maria to eliminate Ethan in order to separate him and Sophie. At tribal council, Benji voted for Ethan but Ethan, Maria, Sharn and Sophie worked together to blindside Benji with an idol in his pocket. At the Final Tribal Council, Benji voted for his close ally Sharn to win the title of Sole Survivor.

## Trivia

* Benji is the older brother of Anneliese from *Survivor: Australia II*.
* Benji, Colby and Emily hold the record for the most pre-merge individual immunity challenge wins in *Africa* and *Survivor* history (along with Jenny), with two.
	+ Benji was the only one of these three to not wins both of his pre-merge individual immunities consecutively.