I have always wondered how many deaf people actually watch the person doing sign language during important events but now I know … a lot, especially at the Nelson Mandela memorial service. Seems they picked up pretty much straight away that the man next to President Obama doing strange hand movements was actually a fake or a really, really bad interpreter. Twitter came to life when deaf people around the world realized he was just flapping his arms around and making it all up. Most tweets went something like this “It was horrible, an absolute circus, really really bad, Only he can understand those gestures.” So far no one has identified the interpreter and the South African government is tight lipped.
Psst Maybe the guy just didn’t understand what President Obama was saying.
Maybe he was translating it into Afrikaans.
Maybe he was some random shooing away flies???
He probably was giving obscene hand gestures & they just thought it was sign language