Caros amigos,
V. já sabem: quando não escrevo é porque estou trabalhando muito. E viajando também.
Na semana passada trabalhei na 10th CEO Annual Conference, realizada pelo UBS Pactual. E passei o fim de semana em Buenos Aires, onde fui ter com meus queridos amigos Rui Duarte e Scott Vander Ploeg, que apesar do nome holandês é americano.
Como Scott nunca havia estado em Buenos Aires, fui com eles ao Malba, que é um belo museu de arte latinoamericana contemporânea, a Santelmo, com suas lojas de antiguidades super interessantes (como a Argentina era um país riquíssimo na primeira metade do século XX, há peças art-nouveau e art-déco incríveis) e passeamos muito por Palermo Soho, bairro onde estávamos hospedados. Aliás, recomendo o Hotel Mine, um hotel boutique super simpático e com preços razoáveis. Fomos almoçar no Cabaña Las Lilas, que é de nosso Belarmino Iglesias, do Rubayat, e à noite fomos ver um monte de gente do bairro ter aulas de tango. Não sem antes tomar um sorvete no Freddo, uma maravilha!
http://picasaweb.google.com.br/tereza.sayeg/ViagemABuenosAiresComRuiEScott?feat=directlink
Antes disso, no entanto, decidi escrever um texto sobre Stella para publicação no Boletim da AIIC, a Associação Internacional de Intérpretes de Conferência. É praxe quando um colega se vai.
Decidi também mostrá-lo a vocês, juntamente com duas fotos de um jantar que organizei quando Ulla Schneider (uma brilhante colega que vive na Alemanha há vinte anos) esteve de visita a São Paulo. (Depois conto mais sobre a Ulla, um modelo para todos nós.
http://picasaweb.google.com.br/tereza.sayeg/JantarComUllaStellaSuziECarola02?authkey=Gv1sRgCKaa4eyx9tOS5wE&feat=directlink
A text about Stella Engelberg Meyer, who died in São Paulo, Brazil, on December 12, 2008
My friend Stella Meyer is gone. The pain her death has caused me set me thinking about friendship and why people make friends with each other. In our case, we couldn’t have been more different: when we met at a Translation/Interpretation course in the late 70s, she was married, had two small boys and I was single. She was also a single child of Jewish Polish descent and I descend from Christian Lebanese and come from a large family. Nevertheless, we hit it off since the very beginning and our favorite standing joke was that we had been friends since we met on the borders of the Guadalquivir, in that brief golden period of Andalusian history where the three great monotheistic religions coexisted in relative peace.
We graduated from the course and started working - very often together. And were always so close that we were also known as Cosme and Damião . Many a time people called me Stella and called her Tereza, and we both answered!
Then she spurred me to go to Monterey to perfect my English interpreting skills and so I did. Later on, she convinced me that it would be great to work in Europe for a while and again I followed her advice.
But we remained close and always saw each other when I returned to Brazil on holidays. And naturally when I came back, we picked up where we had left off.
I can’t remember the number of times Stella gave me and other people very sound and pragmatic advice. Nor do I remember the names of all the people she helped in more ways than one. She was a very generous person.
I don’t have to tell people who knew her what a brilliant interpreter she was. She was a natural. I was there when she sat in the booth at school for the first time and simply started speaking, while I stood in awe next to her.
I suppose from all this that admiration played an important part in our friendship. And after a while, Stella was more than a friend. She was always there for me. She had become a sister.
She was part of my life for so long that it was very difficult to see her gone so early , when she was finally living life fully.
But I take consolation in the fact that she lived as she thought fit till the end.
And if there is such a thing as an afterlife, I am sure she will be waiting for me on the banks of the Guadalquivir.