Gigi and Eric grow closer while Kader uses prime time to address a meaningful topic.
Day 6 is heated: Shovel thief “Winni” is disgusted, Kader opens up and Thorsten cries again. But tough nicotine withdrawal and a “mental” jungle challenge also characterize this eventful day.
“Winni”, you old shovel thief! What’s gotten into you? I hope, dear readers, you’re not eating right now, because this conversation is about to get pretty disgusting! On day 6 in the jungle, our Eric is desperately searching for his beloved fire shovel. Yes, he’s “quite fond of it”! So it’s no wonder that it hurts his heart that this iron love has suddenly disappeared. The shock is even greater when Winfried admits that he used it to scrape the campers’ excrement out of the toilet. How should you clean the thing now? Maybe just leave it in the embers for a while!
After the arguments of the last few days, the nature lovers prove that they can also have normal conversations. Of course, tears flow again this time, for example when the strong-willed Thorsten talks about his grown-up children and reveals that one of them wants to “go his own way” but is “led astray by the wrong people”.
Kader will never know the stresses of parenthood, even though she would have loved to become a mother. In 2017, while planning her family, she was diagnosed with endometriosis – the chameleon among women’s diseases that often goes unnoticed, causes severe pain and is often accompanied by unfulfilled dreams of having children. Kader had her uterus removed and suddenly went into early menopause.
Kader’s courage: taboo subjects and hard truths
The 51-year-old uses her time to talk about important topics that are often taboo. She also talks about anxiety disorders and panic attacks and draws attention to the lack of knowledge about endometriosis, which still causes many women to suffer unnecessarily and their symptoms to be misinterpreted or ignored. This makes early diagnosis and appropriate treatment difficult.
Otherwise, day 6 is the start of a “big party” – at least as far as dinner is concerned. With growling stomachs, the group devours the deliciously roasted ostrich meat, which is served with vegetables. While they eat the meat, some wonder whether the skin can be eaten too. “It’s not skin, but leather, like the kind used for Hermès bags,” says Giulia. Almost everyone falls for the irresistible smell and enjoys the meat with pleasure.
Gossiping is easier with a full stomach. Thorsten and his sister, Germany’s most famous smoker, take turns keeping watch at night. They talk about the campers and their alleged mistakes. Apparently there are “really rude, negative and malicious people” in the jungle!
Conversations about sex and toxic mothers
Meanwhile, “Winni” and Kader share the fire service and chat about sex. Can you still have children at 80? Is anything still happening down there? Kader is curious. Glatzeder’s answer: “You need a young woman, not an old, lousy one.” The new squad leader doesn’t want to go into too much detail yet, though.
Day 6 is also the day when Gigi faces his arch enemy again – the dreaded craving for nicotine. He would like to give his last cigarette to Elena. But it is clear right from the start that he is finding it extremely difficult to stick to his smoke-free period. Not even an immoral marriage proposal from the “Warrior of Love” can get him to stop nicotine withdrawal. It could have been a passionate kiss between the two, but according to Eric, Gigi is “not ready for the next level in life” because he is “shy and uptight.”
Hanka, on the other hand, cannot understand why she is an outsider. She would like to chat with people, but she does not know what she is doing wrong. “Every time I enter a room, I have the feeling that people roll their eyes when they see me.” Perhaps Gerti Bülowius feels the same way about her daughter Georgina. The mother-daughter relationship, the emigrant from Dubai reports, has been “damaged” for years. “She embarrasses me to death,” says Georgina about the “toxic” woman who “was never a good mother to her three children” but hopes to at least be a “good grandmother.”
But there is also a success to report. Mola and Giulia have to face a “crazy” jungle challenge together – the one that Eric once steadfastly rejected. Chained in a cage, they are lowered into a deep, cold river, where they have 15 minutes to open the locks on their chains while standing in the 17-degree water. Having earned six stars, they are one thing above all: better than camp coach Thorsten. But their joy is short-lived, because many rule violations are punished at the end of the day. And who is primarily to blame? The intellect with the “I don’t care” attitude.
Despite the day’s events, the campers manage to have a normal conversation, albeit one that is full of emotion. Thorsten talks about his grief over his children’s choices, while Kader talks about her battle with endometriosis and early menopause. As for Winni, the jungle camp gets to see a new dimension of his character when he confesses to using Eric’s shovel for a rather unpleasant task. Eric then looks for a solution to clean the now “contaminated” shovel.
