March 18, 2004
By Tshepiso Mogotsi
JOBURG fire-fighter Steve Mofokeng says he can't describe how he feels after he and four colleagues won an all-expenses-paid dream holiday to Victoria Falls, in Zambia, on SABC1's Friends Like These game show.
The two squads from EMS
The only sad thing about the result of Saturday evening's show was that Mofokeng and his team achieved their win at the expense of a team of female colleagues from the Johannesburg Emergency Management Services.
Saturday's Friends Like These saw EMS face off against EMS through five gruelling rounds of games. The contest sets up two teams - one male, one female - against each other through a series of challenges in which points are collected.
The team with the highest score goes on to the knockout phase, where the contestants either win big or lose everything. Mofokeng's team won big.
Although they haven't decided when to take their holiday package, the five fire fighters are looking forward to their trip to Zambia. For five days they'll be treated like kings at the Zambezi Royal Hotel, where they will ride elephants, go canoeing and fly over the Victoria Falls on a helicopter.
On Saturday evening the two EMS teams, kitted out in uniform, looked prepared for anything presenter S'bu Leope might throw their way. Before every round Leope was there, encouraging the teams to trust whoever they select for the task. "Boys and girls, is now time to put your faith in a friend."
"These guys have been trained like karate kids," joked Leope as the screaming audience cheered on each contestant.
In Jenga, pieces of Perspex had to be pulled out of a column of precariously placed pieces, using a set of tongs. Rose More was the first to cause the column to topple, much to Lulama Tantsi's relief. Not even her team mates' chant of "Go baby, go choma, go baby" helped. More returned to the sideline, smiling. "My girls will win all the remaining games," she said with confidence.
Two new games were introduced specially for the fire fighters - identifying emergency equipment blindfolded and drawing an ambulance.
In the hotly contested drawing round even Picasso would have had difficulty carrying out the instructions from the sidelines. All the directions were reversed and the contestants struggled to follow the instructions. "Tito! Tito! Tito!" shouted the boys as Tito Nkosi battled away. Rachel Losaba finished first, drawing her own unique version of an EMS ambulance. Her win gave the girls a crucial point to level the score.
Emily Mokoena embarrassed Steve Mofokeng when she successfully managed to open five padlocks quicker than he could. In this challenge contestants had to unlock five padlocks by selecting the correct key from a bunch of 10 keys. "The girls selected me for this challenge because they know that I'm very fast when I'm furious."
With the points at 4-3 to the women's squad, Joseph Kalani proved to be very cool under pressure, bringing the score level in a game of hoopla, where contestants had to throw hoops over a stand.
The men then went on to win in a sudden death tie, sending the women's squad back to base and leaving the men to tackle the quick-fire question session.
Gracious in defeat, Mokoena wished her opponents a wonderful holiday. "They must enjoy themselves - even though I believe me and my girls deserve that holiday. No hard feelings gents."
Friends Like These is screened every Saturday on SABC1 from 6.30pm to 7.30pm.
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