Tanzanian tour guide is arrested over video prank with a western tourist
Serengeti Park guide Saimon Sirikwa pretended to mistranslate the woman's comments into criticisms of local people as a joke
A TOUR guide in Tanzania has been arrested over a video in which he deliberately mistranslated an English-speaking tourist to make it appear she was criticising local people.
Saimon Sirikwa, a guide in Serengeti National Park, posted a video on social media last week that showed him chatting with a woman and translating her comments in English into Swahili.
While the woman was actually making glowing remarks about Tanzanian people being “fabulously wonderful”, according to Sirikwa, she was telling locals to stop “complaining” about hunger.
He was arrested for casting Tanzania’s tourism ministry in a “bad light”, police said, according to the .
Kenyan entertainment news site translated the conversation into English and it reportedly went as follows:
Tourist: “Hi. My visit to Tanzania has been beautiful, gorgeous. The people are fabulously wonderful and friendly. Greetings are always jambo [the Swahili equivalent of Hello]. Happy to be here. The land is beautiful, beautiful. The animals are wonderful.”
Sirikwa (translating): “You Tanzanians complain/cry a lot about hunger. Everyday you cry about hunger when you have flowers at home. Why don’t you boil the flowers and drink [them]. It is not good to cry/complain about hunger.”
Tourist: “The variety of animals and people you see is incredible, unlike anywhere
else. It is just fabulous.”
Sirikwa: “You are asking your president to cook for you. Do you think your president is a cook? Can you get busy, even boil your clothing and eat.”
Tourist: “It will be an experience to savour for all of your life. It is fantastic and beautiful and incredible and just unremarkable.
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Sirikwa: “Get busy in every corner of the country. The president can’t leave State House to cook for you. You have to cook for yourselves.”
Sirikwa has made a number of humorous videos, including one in which he impersonated US President Donald Trump.
He and the woman reappeared in a new video, posted two days later, to clarify the mistranslations were all a joke.
Sirikwa said in the follow-up video: “The video was just a comedy.
“It was for fun, and I know there are people who are offended by this video. It was not my intention to hurt anyone. I apologise to my fans and followers."
He added: "Continue receiving entertainment, but just note my offensive jokes were misunderstood. Thank you.”
But it was reported that Tanzania’s tourism minister Jumanne Maghembe had already taken offence to the first video and ordered for Sirikwa to be arrested.
Regional police commander Jaffari Mohammed told the BBC there was evidence to prove the tour guide he had violated Tanzanian cybercrime laws by uploading his video.
The law carries a minimum fine of$1,300 (£1,000) and a minimum jail term of three months for publishing false, deceptive or misleading information on a computer system, the BBC reports.
Sirikwa was charged in a court in Musoma, northern Tanzania. He was not asked to plead and was remanded in police custody, according to the BBC.