Urs Marrer
A
challenge I overcame: To finish working life successfully.
A dream
for my future: To maintain my health.
A hope for the global community: To have peace in the world.
Urs was one of my first Step 1 pals. He and Columbian Ana were the only other
students at the school during my first week, and the ones to introduce me to
the delights of buffet-by-the-kilo lunches that seem so popular here in Brazil.
Swiss Urs has traveled in Brazil a number
of times, and this time is here marking the start of his early retirement from
engineering with these weeks of intense language study before meeting up with
his wife to holiday in Rio. Urs has been
studying Portuguese once-a-week in Switzerland for the last 8 years and always
mentioned his fellow students there at the time and day of their classes. He seemed to be delighting in his decision to
take early retirement, which follows on from the last few years of opting for a
reduced 4-day week, recognizing that the important thing in life is to have
enough time for himself and his projects – a wisdom I very much admire.
Urs was also the one to suggest the cinema
as a way to practice Portuguese and it was with him that I saw Vai que Da Certo, (all in
Portuguese – I think I understood about 10% of what was said, but got the whole
film interesting how little language is needed!) and then with him and
Californian Kendra that we saw Anna Karenina (English with Portuguese subtitles
– much easier, how much I read them is debatable).
A really beautiful film, especially with the unusual theatre –set
backdrops, but phew, so depressing to think of the restricted and dependent
life of a woman in those times.
Urs is also a keen photographer, so it is
thanks to him that we have some good group shots of we Step 1 folk. And on our
afternoon ‘school-trip’ to Lisboa’s antique shops with their fascinating
mixture of European and Asian trinkets and furniture, we learned that he is not
only highly knowledgeable about tools (he has a workshop back home where he
does craftwork) but also clarinets.
(left to right) Dayane, Larissa, Urs, Kim, Brook :-)
Urs, deseando você uma aposentadoria muito tranquilo,
estimulate e cheio de aventuras!
Um abraço
:-)
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