[Slling-l] NPR article on South African SL interpreters

[Mark Mandel]

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/30/905417180/unusual-celebrities-sign-language-interpreters-for-south-africa-s-president

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THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

How 2 Sign Language Interpreters Became Unlikely Pandemic Stars

August 30, 2020  • 7:01 AM ET


When Andiswa Gebashe was growing up in Soweto in the 1990s, she had two
dreams.

"I wanted to be an actor, and I wanted to be the president," she says.

Today, improbably, she is both – thought not exactly in the way she
imagined.

Gebashe is a South African Sign Language (SASL) interpreter for South
Africa's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, interpreting his televised speeches on
the coronavirus pandemic on live TV for the country's deaf community.

"When you are up there interpreting, part of the job is to embody the
speaker," says Gebashe, who grew up with a deaf father and signed before
she ever spoke. "So when I'm on stage with him, I'm not Andiswa. I am
actually the president."

And with millions tuning in for the presidential updates on the coronavirus
and the country's continuing lockdown, Gebashe and her fellow presidential
interpreter Nicoline Du Toit have also become known figures here in their
own right – or as one local newspaper put it, "low key celebrities of a
very unusual persuasion."

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The article goes on to discuss the importance and necessity of sign
language interpreters for the Deaf community, along with some of the
history of SASL in Deaf education. It's unsurprisingly similar to that of
ASL, but apartheid added another level... and a surprising twist.

Mark Mandel
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