Who, I wondered, would appear on a program called �Naked and Afraid�? Someone from Rhode Island.

I was flipping channels when I came across two naked people � a young man and woman. They were outdoors hiking in the wilderness.

The show, on the Discovery Channel, was called �Naked and Afraid.� It�s now in its third season, with each episode dropping two new people in the wild to try to survive 21 days. These two were in harsh, 112-degree Botswana. They had some things blurred out but you could see their hindquarters.

Who, I wondered, would appear on such a program?

The narrator gave me the answer: Someone from Rhode Island. The naked woman was from Coventry.

Intrigued, I decided to track her down. She�s back home living with her parents. I reached her by phone.

Her name is Ashley Burns, a 25-year-old bartender. I told her who I was and asked why she wanted to be shown naked and afraid on national television?

She said she grew up doing a lot of hiking, fishing and camping. She felt it was her kind of challenge.

�And the whole fact of me being naked,� she said, �I was cool with it. If you look at Adam and Eve, which is kind of the premise of the show, they were naked. I think Americans put too much emphasis on things we shouldn�t care about.�

She had applied and was interviewed but doubted she had a chance. Then a call came last March while she was bartending in Dartmouth.

�I was so excited I threw the phone in the air,� said Ashley. �I�m a little bit dramatic.�

Her dad wasn�t as thrilled.

�Why couldn�t you be on the Disney Channel?� he asked. And added: �You better find a fig leaf.�

Last April, Ashley flew out of Boston, made three connections, was picked up by a small crew in Botswana and driven for most of a day to the middle of a parched nowhere. That�s where she met her survival mate � a 32-year-old Seattle banker and traveler named Michael Jefferson.

Soon, it was time. Ashley was wearing shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops. Both she and Michael stripped and tossed their stuff in the producers� truck.

I asked if it felt weird.

A little, she said, but instead of being embarrassed in front of a male stranger, it helped that they were in this together.

�We both smiled,� Ashley said, �did a look up and down and it was like, �OK � here we are.� And we continued on.�

They were given a map and set out to find a watering hole where they could set up shelter. The terrain was rugged and hot with sparse vegetation. Being naked quickly became just a survival problem instead of a source of awkwardness.

They were allowed to bring one item and carry it in a burlap shoulder sack. Ashley brought a flint fire-starter, Michael a machete. Neither had shoes, water or food.

Ashley said she�d trained by running barefoot on pavement in Coventry for weeks but it didn�t help, partly because it seemed everything in Botswana had thorns � including tree bark that might have served as makeshift foot cover. Thorns were even scattered on the ground.

�My feet were mutilated,� said Ashley. �Start to finish.�

She soon felt dehydrated, and it took hours more to find a watering hole. It turned out to be too filthy to drink � clearly used by wild animals.

The heat was brutal, so they smeared mud on themselves to protect from sun and bugs. Michael cut sticks with his machete and they made a three-sided shelter.

But they found nothing to eat and by nighttime, Ashley told me, she was so parched her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Given her background, I asked if she began to crave Del�s Lemonade.

She laughed. �To be honest, all I thought about was orange soda.�

The temperature at night fell to 65, and because it was so big a drop, it felt freezing. They made a fire but it was still cold. Because of the thorns and spare landscape, there were no leafy materials for blankets.

Ashley felt faint and now ill. She worried she was having an allergic reaction to something. She and Michael lay down separately in the shelter, shivering.

I began to ask if they, umm �

�Yes,� she said quickly. �I looked up at him and said, �You know, Michael, I�m kind of cold. Are you opposed to us cuddling to stay warm?� �

She added: �But we�d already discussed that he had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend.�

And?

�He said, �Under the premise of us both surviving, of course not.� �

So they did. Which got me raising the second question she said everyone asked her: Was there sexual tension?

�Absolutely not. In my regular life, I�m very old school. He was a great-looking guy, but you�re just in survival mode.�

She said they were also filthy, famished, cut up and, in her case, nauseous. No one was feeling sensual.

The next morning, they decided to drink from the cleanest part of the dirty watering hole. By that second night, Ashley was worse. There were concerns the water made her sicker.

Michael told her she needed to ask for help.

The show has no prize money so she wouldn�t be giving that up. But she told him she wanted to prove to herself she could do this.

But as the second night went on, she began to shake. She couldn�t feel her legs from the knees down. The two felt her condition was getting dangerous, so they told the crew she needed medical care. A native medic came in and gave her IV fluids and antibiotics for a possible infection.

And still Ashley said she wanted to go on, which would have been allowed.

She tried. But the next day the symptoms worsened. She was dizzy and even fell when she tried to stand.

Finally, on Day 3, Ashley Burns tapped out.

Michael kept going, surviving on grasshoppers, plants and a few bird�s eggs. But by Day 12, he�d lost 20 pounds and was blacking out from eating iffy plants. Finally, he tapped out, too.

Meanwhile, Ashley had been driven back to the tented base camp. It took three days of treatment there by a doctor before she got her strength back.

She headed to the airport. The only other thing she�d brought besides the shorts and T-shirt was a light dress. That�s what she wore home.

I asked if she at least had a change of underwear.

She laughed. �No � nothing under it. Maybe that�s too much information.� But she said after three days naked, she still felt almost overdressed.

Her episode aired a few weeks ago and can still be seen on Hulu.com. Some friends who saw it asked why she agreed to be naked on TV � what she was thinking?

�Are you crazy?� one asked.

She laughed and said, �Yes, I am.�

But most told her she had guts. They respected her boldness � and how hard she tried.

She told me that despite getting beat down so quickly, it was one of the best experiences of her life. It�s a big payoff, she said, to find you have it in you to take on an extreme challenge.

It even changed her.

Since coming home, she has simplified her life, switching from late bartending hours to a more predictable job in auto sales and finance.

She got rid of many possessions, including her television and much of her wardrobe. She said she misses none of it � because of what she learned while naked in the wilderness:

How little a person really needs.

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