Did I miss the memo?

Living abroad means that sometimes you just don’t get the memo. In the beginning I was ever-vigilant about things like what time to actually show up when invited for lunch at 12:30, or how best to befriend your new housekeeper, communicating respect, without totally freaking her out with your openness, or who to kiss hello and goodbye (including your dentist or cardiologist) and with how many slightly audible smacks.

I got the memo in advance about what to take to the beach (i.e. not a big towel, nor nearly anything else for that matter). My husband keeps slipping me the memo about flattery working better than sternness every time I get frustrated with a bank manager. And my mother-in-law has not given up trying to get me to read the memo about the omnipotence of the Brazilian family matriarch.

If you are no longer a teenager... wear the Speedo. [These boys look like they need some sunscreen as well!]

It didn't take long after I starting living here before I had to decide on which futebol team would be “my team.” Or better put, which team “was I?” According to the memo, here in Brazil people are not asking you which team you root for, they want to know which team you are. If you are asked: “What is your favorite futebol team?” the right answer begins with: “I am….” Nowadays my response is “Eu sou Flamengo.” “I am Flamengo.” Got it.

And speaking of futebol, there were a whole bunch of memos that must have gone out just before the World Cup started. Some I got, like the one that said to wear green and yellow on all game days. Everyone (EVERYONE), in any context, seems to have gotten that memo.

Several of my students slipped me the memo that said all bets are off regarding scheduled appointments or classes on game days for Brazil. Plus in Rio – if there is ANY game happening at Maracanã stadium, chances are businesses are closed (city government offices are certainly closed) or appointments are cancelled to avoid the craziness on the streets.

The one I didn't get (but should have anticipated) is the one that apparently told most workers that even though their boss will call them in for half a day on game days, letting them go a few hours before match time, they really don’t have to actually get any work done. So any attempt by unfamiliar gringos like me to, say, do some banking, or get a phone company issue resolved, or speak with a representative from the health insurance company --- forgeddaboutit.

OK, that’s fine. It's all good. Now I know. I’m not in a hurry anyway… For all intents and purposes, business in Brazil resumes in mid-July, after the World Cup has come to a (hopefully glorious) conclusion. Got the memo.

Innovative flower designs at Flor de Luiz

click to enlarge images

As the persistent and inspiring street protests by Brazilian citizens demanding cleaner government and improved social services enter their fourth week, things back at Flor de Luiz continue apace.

Luiz has introduced a new line of flower arrangements utilizing pieces of drift wood collected from the beach near our apartment.  These natural beachscape pieces combine flowers, mosses, insects and nesting bird details to produce stunning results.

Introducing these innovative designs is meant to both feed and inform the curious public that comes to his booth at the weekend art fair. Luiz has earned a reputation for unique and unusual designs. So many  local florists follow a tired old (perhaps tried and true, in their opinion) formula for arrangements that amounts to little more than “chop and drop” simple pieces that everyone has seen a hundred times before.

Luiz is never content to stay on the beaten trail. He feels best when he is on the path less traveled. It has been an uphill struggle, slowly teaching those who visit his booth that innovation is not only possible but beautiful when it comes to flower designs. He invites people to join him in thinking out of the box and to value design over sheer volume of blooms.

We have witnessed the steady morphing of his clients from elderly women looking for that simple bunch of roses in a pot for their bathroom vanity into a younger set of urban professionals excited by innovation, seeking to lead the pack with feature designs that light up a room rather than just fill up a space.

It has not been easy to convince the inexperienced consumer to eat their vegetables (even when they taste so sweet). Luiz definitely has a selection of the tried and true designs available as gifts for grandma. But slowly his booth is blossoming into a weekly destination visited by curious neighbors out for a stroll in the park on the weekend.

Going off-market to renovate our apartment building

For privacy reasons I am not including actual photos of our building.

Workers have just completed the resurfacing of our building’s exterior. Here is the story.

We live in a 12 unit apartment building (condominium) that was built in the early 1970s. It is a typical building of its sort here in Brazil: clay brick and cement construction, two bedroom apartments a bit on the small side, no elevator or off street parking, and a great street corner location across from a rare green space in the neighborhood.

Most of the units have been occupied for the past 40 years by their original owners.  Five of the apartments are now occupied by aging, widowed octogenarians. The rest are mature families or second or third generation family members of original owners.

It is a quiet building on a loud and busy neighborhood thoroughfare where most newer buildings have commercial spaces on the street level. Ours is among the older buildings in the vicinity. Over the years smaller buildings have been bought out and replaced by shiny new 20 story condos with all the modern conveniences (like parking and hot water). One of these years our building will suffer this same fate. But until many of the older residents no longer need their unit there will never be a consensus among residents to sell to developers. In the mean time, I suppose, the location of the building continues to hold its value.

As a smaller building without an elevator or a door man we enjoy a very low monthly condominium fee. Most residents are happy to simply have a weekly cleaning of the hallways and entry as well as a well functioning front gate and intercom system. Not much to keep up. Once in a great while we get the walls painted in the interior hallway/stairway.

Alas, some time ago, neighborhood youth came through and “tagged” our building on the outer first and second floors. It has been an eyesore for years. I have not encouraged my friends to look us up on Google Maps Street View because the resulting snapshot revealed our shame. Getting the building residents to kick in the extra monthly fees required to afford a resurfacing of the outside of the building has been like pulling teeth (maybe the wrong expression, as many residents lack their original teeth). But finally the younger residents prevailed and we got a temporary condominium fee increase passed, prescribed for a building face lift.

So – big deal, we got the building resurfaced. I say resurfaced and not repainted because we have this cute but maintenance-intense sandy coating applied to the cement outer surface of the building. It looks great, but it is not suitable for a coating of paint. To freshen it up you have to apply a new layer of this sand-like material (we can choose the color).

But still, what is the blog-appropriate tale behind this activity? As with so many things here in Brazil, it is not the destination, but the journey, that makes living here such an adventure.

OK – so we start with the assumption by all the residents that we will not be hiring a big, professional building maintenance company with a crew of trained employees to do the work. Everyone knows that that will be expensive and that surely somebody knows somebody who has a guy who does this sort of thing for a lot less (working 'off market,' in the grey market, or underground). Sure enough, the síndico (the building resident elected by everyone to take care of building issues) identifies a couple of these off-market ‘tradesmen’ and gets some bids. Once a guy is chosen he is given 50% of the agreed upon fee to buy materials, rent scaffolding and get the ball rolling. Sure enough, a motley crew of disheveled workers appears and begins the process. As usual, I am taken aback by the lack of safety equipment, proper shoes and apparent lack of supervision. But hey, this has been my experience over and over again here, so I am not surprised. I will say that my early suggestions to get a detailed written contract and proof of insurance, etc. fell on deaf ears. Fellow residents were not up for going legit for something as ‘simple’ as resurfacing the building. (Insert swelling ominous background music here.)

Not long after erecting the scaffolding (including trampling over one of Zozó’s patio flower beds) the materials arrived and work began. The next day the contractor (the white guy with the nice car) showed up to tell the síndico that his bid had been too low and that he would need an additional R$6,000 to complete the job. WTF? (Insert cartoon image of Jim with scrunched face mouthing ‘I told you so’ here.)

Across the street, to save money, they repainted the building without the use of scaffolding.

Sigh. No agreement was reached. After about a week of activity and only 1/3 of the job completed the contractor pulled his workers, refusing to continue without his extortion pay additional payment. To make matters worse, he returned in the middle of the night and stole building materials we had paid for.

Now the síndico was left with the unenviable task of finding another off-market guy who would pick up the pieces and complete the job for a price that would not cause a total revolt among building residents. It was not a happy time. Under the circumstances she did a great job finding another friend of a friend’s friend who does this kind of work and who would take the job for the available price.

Once again we were invaded by a crew of (seemingly interchangeable) anonymous workers in flip flops ready to spread sandy mud on the building façade. They were a jovial crew and worked pretty fast. Being tidy or detail oriented did not seem to be included in the contract, but before long the job was finished. 

Unfortunately these guys did some pretty serious damage to the remaining two flower beds in the patio area, but I was told to hold my tongue. They were done and the whole process would soon be behind us.

I’m sure we saved a lot of money by going this all-too-common “nas coxas” route (to do something in haste, without care or attention to quality). But the proof is in the pudding. We will see how long the treatment lasts. It could easily be of equal or better quality to the same work done by a more expensive company, but nobody knows at this point.

The point of this whole thing has more to do with the common propensity here to get things done off-market and save some money. Many people feel hopeless about any guarantees offered by larger companies and they are very accustomed to using casual labor. The fact that any finished product may have its flaws, or that gardens may get trampled in the process is just how it goes. Suing for breach of contract or unresolved disputes like replanting the gardens is just unthinkable and impractical to almost everyone. Any suit filed could easily take several years to resolve, even if settled out of court. In general, people don’t go there.

Having grown up in a family where my father was a contractor with keen attention to detail, trustworthiness and value, this local approach sets my skin to crawling. On the bright side, in the end our building looks great and no big harm seems to have come from working off-market. And we saved nearly 50% over the cost of a ‘regular’ contractor. Fingers crossed.

Google Maps Street View, we are ready for our close-up.

Starting a business in Brazil – some tips

First, as my 77 year old Brazilian father-in-law and previous business owner used to say (may he rest in peace) “Be careful what you wish for.”

Should I start with the positives or the negatives? Oh heck, I’ll dive into the starry eyed positives as seen by this newcomer through his rose colored glasses. Luiz and I traveled to Brazil many times in the years before we picked up and moved here. During that time I had one eye looking out for business opportunities – and thought I saw many sure things.

Like: we could open a Mexican restaurant/taqueria. Cheap ingredients, hearty food, great take out for working people and the taquerias in San Francisco ALWAYS had a line out the door. Easy peasy.

Or maybe Luiz should take his formal education and international training as a floral designer and open a flower shop with event flowers as a featured service. We went so far as to produce a beautiful website, brochures, note cards and brought a ton of specialty items to make his arrangements pop.

How about an import/export business? So many things are cheaper in the US. We could import them to Brazil. And there is a rich art and fashion pulse in Brazil that would surely appeal to US Americans.

Best of all, we could find a tiny coastal village just beginning to get noticed and open a tropical paradise bed and breakfast (pousada). We would make it a cut above and appeal to the international travel set and the expanding middle class of Brazilians taking family vacations – all the while sitting on the beach sipping chilled coconut water and telling our housekeeper and pool boy what to do next.

Then our plane landed in Brazil. We moved into our apartment and, once we got our bearings, we started to investigate the possibilities for real. (Here comes the negative part.)

Truth be told, we did not move to Brazil to start up a whole new chapter in our life growing a business and working too much. As far as 60 hour work weeks go – been there, done that. So we scratched most of our fantasies and focused on our “unfair competitive advantages” e.g. Luiz’s international floral design expertise and my being a native English speaker from the United States in a country that likes those kinds of English teachers.

It became immediately apparent to us that Brazilians are very clever, hardworking and seasoned (not to mention cut-throat) entrepreneurs. In a land with a history of minimal (honest) opportunities to earn a substantial living and one with a byzantine legal system that regulates and taxes (or charges fees for) just about everything, as outsiders we were at a decidedly woeful disadvantage in the mainstream of building a successful business. Knowing how to manage the system and flourish within a web of personal connections is baseline. These are insights and relationships generally out of reach to most newcomers.

As an outsider I could see so many ways that businesses could be made more efficient or otherwise improved, or so I thought, only to learn that government regulations, bank loan interest rates, taxes, labor laws, the availability (lack thereof) of skilled workers with an earnest work ethic, taxes, local corruption, near closed business environments in some competitive areas, and taxes were the real culprits.

To my friends looking to move to Brazil and open a business I say: welcome, good luck, and start looking for a good lawyer and a “fixer” to help you get started. I’m sure it could be a breeze for some, I just have never seen evidence of that. I prefer my rosy glasses and chilled coconut water on the beach.

So we bailed on any thoughts of a pousada or an import/export gig from scratch. Luiz has found his niché in flower design working in “permanent botanicals” showcased at the weekly arts fair in the park and designing for individual clients.

Over time our musings about opening a lunch and dinner Mexican restaurant have morphed into launching a food truck specializing in wraps of all kinds. This addresses the reluctance among locals to try “different” foods. We could produce a “Carioca Wrap” or a Mexican inspired burrito with carne seca, or maybe a Bahian inspired spicy seafood wrap. Also, the truck eliminates the need to rent space etc., we would not have to hire people, and we could move it around to where the people are (festivals, street parties, nighttime hot spots, etc.) But still there are the regulations, licenses, taxes and turf power brokers. That beach still looks pretty good to me.  

I have settled into a comfortable work schedule (including the afore mentioned beach, glasses and beverage) as an “English Polisher” for adult professionals preparing to present at an international conference or about to ship off to the States for a 6 month work gig. Doctors and lawyers are always looking to improve their English speaking skills. Students headed for graduate school in the States always want to speak better. And my sometimes favorite: bored rich housewives preparing to go on a shopping trip to New York City are sure they need specialized vocabulary assistance.

All that said, here are a few new ideas for a bright and overachieving entrepreneur looking to make a go of it here in Brazil:

-          -  Running a mobile copy service: a cart you can park in front of the Federal Police office, the Notary Public, the Consulate, etc. Visitors to these offices always need additional copies of some document or another and the offices themselves do not make their copy machines available.

-         -  A private parking and traffic enforcement operation. In the past five and a half years I have never seen a city official write a parking ticket or stop a driver for even the most egregious driving offense. Of course, you would have to convince the local government to outsource this function – but believe me, it would reap a fortune for all stakeholders.

-        -  Full service business consulting for expats looking to beat Brazilian entrepreneurs at their own game. To put your clients at ease, put a pink light bulb in your desk lamp and serve coconut water in your office cooler.

I’m sure other expats who have been here a while would have a few suggestions and/or a cautionary tale or two.

A cruise on the bay

One of the advantages of your husband being a registered tour guide in Rio state is that you get to go on free trips sponsored by tour groups that want you to bring tourists to their business.

This time around we took a bay cruise.

I can see why it would be fun for tourists - lots of fantastical sights and lots of time on the bay. But I was a bit underwhelmed. Call be cynical...

But naturally - we had fun with our friends.

Polishing English at Zanna Sound

As an expat without a sponsoring employer, my employment options in the short run here in Brazil distill down to teaching English (even if you don’t know crap about English grammar). To be fair – I never suggest to potential students/clients that I am an English teacher.  I state that I am simply a native speaker with some smarts. So I describe myself as an English “polisher”, which is of value to bi-lingual professionals.

Get it right. Speak clearly and concisely. Communicate effectively. Be articulate. Connect with those who speak English. That is my job.

It has been very exciting this past year to work with Zanna at Zanna Sound.  Learning about Sound Branding as an English consultant for Zanna Sound in Rio has been very interesting and it has certainly been innovative stuff. 

Zanna, principle of Zanna Sound, is more than an intriguing and inspiring client. She has changed and is changing the landscape of marketing via sound, and I have found it remarkably interesting to be in this process.

There is nothing more fun than a smart client with sophisticated content wanting my assistance. Thank the goddess that most of my English students/clients are advanced professionals with interesting things to engage in.

Zanna lights up the room. She is a brilliant innovator and has built an international reputation as a leader in Sound Branding. She is in fact the premiere professional in this field in Latin America.

Sound branding is that thing you already know about – think about the sound that happens when you turn on your computer. You instantly recognize the sound – and the association with the brand. Think about the ambient sound you hear when you go into some retail spaces (good or bad). Think about the sounds associated with some companies when you are put on hold on the phone. This is all thoughtful stuff on their part. (Or it should be.)

Zanna Sound works to educate companies about the significant value of working this sound dynamic to their advantage. And Zanna has developed an innovative methodology for securing results.

I will not go into the details – but do follow the links to learn more.

Suffice it to say that Zanna is an innovator, she is opening new spaces for companies to grow their brand, and she will be a force to be acknowledged for many years to come.

It is a delight to work with her – and I look forward to more collaboration in the future.

Check out her website!

Sometimes it is fun to go to work.

Note: - Zanna is currently in southern France at Cannes Lions (the 59^th annual conference of creativity) as a juror and a presenter.

You know you are in Brazil when

You know you are in Brazil when the worker refurbishing the four story building across the street is barefoot. He´s hanging by a rope on a makeshift wooden seat from which he has a bucket of plaster attached which he is using to patch the walls - and has a pried-open 10L can of paint tied by rope to his wooden seat through the lid of the can from which he alternates some painting activity.

I watched him attach his "secure suspension system" by taking out several roof tiles and locating a roof beam onto which he tied his humble rope.

He did not seem confident, at first, about his mechanics. I cold barely watch!

But apparently he is an experienced, fearless, acrobat construction worker. He´s been up there all day and doing fine.

I hope he is getting paid a decent wage... (fat chance)

Luiz's school success

Our Luizinho has completed his first of two semesters of formal technical training to become a certified tour guide in Rio state and beyond.  For the past several months Luis has awakened, Monday through Thursday, at 5:20 a.m. to catch a bus to Rio to sit for five hours of coursework. He has made LOTS of new friends and has demonstrated he has the natural ability to be a leader, a guide, an engaging teacher and a charismatic guide. I’m personally excited to report that he earned an average of 9.0 out of 10 points each for the 10 courses he took. (Said the proud husband.)

All modesty aside, Luiz was voted by his peers to be the class leader/liaison to the course administration; he was cheered as a natural speaker by his colleagues; and credited by his professors as a valuable resource to any agency that will certainly utilize his services.

But we knew all that.

It has been wonderful for me to see Luiz so engaged and excited about this new professional path. He has had a bounce in his step (even at 5:20 a.m.) and I know he is proud to have been recognized by his peers.

The additional fun aside to all of this is that we have enjoyed many, many free tickets and back-stage passes that come from being a desirable tour guide. Lots of venues want you to know about them and work to encourage you to bring your tour guests to their venues.  Thus the free bits for us. Nice. Work it Luiz!

How did I get here?

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack.
And you may find yourself in another part of the world.
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife.
And you may ask yourself - Well...How did I get here?

Teaching English and providing written translation in Brazil.  WTF?  My past includes more than 20 years of professional management experience, managing million dollar budgets, schmoozing with the mayor. And now… correcting pronunciation and explaining common grammar errors.  

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

I just did a little inventory.  I have 34 lists of conversation questions, 25 lists of idioms, 76 lesson plans based on current events, 35 pages of song lyrics, and 40 vocabulary lists (plus much more). I’ve become an English teacher.

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right?...Am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
MY GOD!...WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Somehow I have carved out a niche. I have attracted clients. I have created a rhythm that pays the bills, but does not consume me in the process.  Luiz and I have made the transition.

Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...

Zezinho featured in Forbes

Hey Zezinho - who's your promotions manager?  Good work landing the article in Forbes online. Nice!

That ought to drive some clients your way. Congratulations.

Favela Tourism Provides Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Rio
Posted by Felicity Clarke

Rio de Janeiro has long been the “face” of Brazil and is the most visited city in South America. Tourism represents a significant area of the city’s economy, and one which is only set to grow with the forthcoming World Cup 2014 and 2016 Olympics. In recent years, there has been a huge increase in visitors to the city, adding a favela tour to the traditional must-sees such as Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain.

While the vast majority of the tours are operated by companies outside the communities, the growth in favela tourism is an area of entrepreneurial opportunity for favela residents.

One of the most visited favelas in the city is Rocinha. Located close to tourist hot spots Ipanema and Leblon, it is the largest favela in the city with an estimated 250,000 residents living in the vertiginous, tight wall of brick and concrete housing that covers the entire hillside.

Zezinho da Silva, 48, is a Rocinha resident whose enthusiasm and pride in the “city within a city” is evident on sight, from his 100% Favela T-shirt to his extensive favela tattoos.

Born in Rocinha to a father from the northeast of Brazil and American mother, Zezinho grew up in the favela before living in the U.S. on and off until 2008, when he decided to return to Rocinha for good. He says: “I wanted to live somewhere with a sense of community, which is something I didn’t feel in the U.S.”

Read the entire article here.

Being a tour guide in Rio state

Luiz is everywhere these days. Regular readers know he is taking a two-year course at the state university to be licensed as an official tour guide.  It hasn’t been easy.  He wakes Monday through Thursday at 5:20 a.m. to catch a bus at 5:50 a.m. to get to school in Rio on time. Classes go until 12:30 p.m.

In addition to his new friends, the fun bits about the course are the many “technical” tours he takes of places of interest: museums, the botanical gardens, historical districts, forts, etc.

On Friday I went with Luiz and his classmates to the largest water treatment plant in the world, located just outside of Rio.  This filtration plant, built in 1955, treats 43 cubic meters of water every second, 24/7/365.  It produces all of the clean drinking water for the city of Rio de Janeiro, plus some neighboring cities. It was quite impressive.

Yesterday Luiz went to the Copacabana Fort for a behind the scenes tour.

Nowadays, as we ride the bus through Rio, Luiz points out various places and describes some little known fact about them.  He’s loving this new adventure.

I’m very proud of him (and I love the free tickets to cool stuff!)

Why work when you can pay another guy to do it?

My father was a master cabinet maker / craftsman who could build, repair or remodel anything.  Be it woodworking, masonry, electrical or plumbing – he knew it all, and tried to share his wisdom with me.  I, on the other hand, never took to the trade (although my mother, sister and brother worked for the family business and soaked up all the training and confidence my father had to offer.)

When something breaks in our house I call a handyman to come fix it.  My dad has probably rolled over in his grave at some of the things I have paid to have installed or repaired.  While I can still hear his voice in my head: “If someone else can do it – we can do it,” I nonetheless pick up the phone and get ready to write a check.

Here in Brazil I don’t feel so bad. Labor is so cheap (which is a really bad thing for those of us who sell our labor to make a living) that it is often cheaper to hire a guy than do it yourself.  Let me offer an example.

We have a “Blindex” style shower in the bathroom.  That means the shower is surrounded by glass (no shower curtain). The door hinges are designed to use gravity to automatically close the door.  When you open the door the hinges twist and lift the door ever so slightly and then when you release it gravity lowers the door, hinges twisting, back to the closed position. Recently, the central pin in one of these hinges gave out (It was a good 20 years old).

Feeling very proud of myself I took the door off its hinges and set it safely aside until we could get this repaired.  At first I looked into doing it myself (gasp! – I know). I walked to the neighborhood glass and mirror shop and found that replacement hinges would cost between R$70 – R$90.  Then I would have to change them out and re-hang the door.

Not this Jim!

Somehow I never got the juice to actually begin the project. (Oh, really…)

With our birthday party looming we finally called a guy to come fix it.  In true Brazilian style, the guy had an idea for how to repair the broken hinge rather than buying a new one.  I am always skeptical of these funky fix-it jobs, but making it work on a shoestring is a proud art form among Brazilian handymen.

Long story short – the guy rebuilt the hinge using R$2 worth of materials.  Then we directed him to our electric-heating shower head which had long ago stopped functioning on two of the three temperature settings.  He bought a R$12 part and fixed that as well.

So if I had done the work myself I would have spent R$80 on new hinges and bought a new showerhead for R$60 – and maybe electrocuted myself.

Instead, our handyman guy used R$14 in parts and charged us R$40 for his labor.

It was cheaper to hire some help.  The jobs are done right. And I did not have to break a sweat.

Flor de Luiz and Mother's Day

Luiz had a whirlwind weekend at the crafts fair.  Then again, Mother’s Day and flowers go together like cookies and cream. He sold 17 flower arrangements!

Saturday was so busy he had to work into the night to create new arrangements for Sunday.

As time goes by more and more people know his stand and return for what they are looking for.  And Luiz is gaining a greater understanding of what people seem to want in permanent botanicals (like more purple flowers).

To see his work in natural flowers, visit his website at Flor de Luiz.

The good the bad and the ugly of Brazilian freedoms

One of the love hate relationships I have with Brazilian society is the lack of regulation or oversight or restriction imposed by the government.  I should say the lack of enforcement of these things.  Laws may exist and rules may have been drawn up, but seldom do you see any enforcement of same.

One example that reminds me of the vast gulf between the USA and Brazil in this regard is the simple fact that for the past several decades in Niteroi there has been a paved/mosaic waterfront promenade in Icaraí that goes all along the beach and rocky shoreline.  This promenade is sometimes at the same level as the sandy beach and at times it is 5 meters above a rocky shoreline.  At no place along this popular, crowded and open promenade is there a protective railing to prevent people from falling off the “cliff” (in places) and injuring themselves on the rocks below.

[I should say that just last year the city installed a railing, but as I say, it was not there for many, many years. My example holds.]

In the States there would be a railing or there would be a slew of law suits. Here, you are expected to take responsibility for your own safety and NOT GET TOO CLOSE TO THE EDGE – thank you very much.  If you fall over – well, it was not the City’s fault now was it?

So that’s the “love” side of my experience.  No government controlling your every move. But here is the “hate” side.

There is a successful and ever-expanding restaurant located directly across the street from our apartment.  As it has grown in popularity it has needed to expand in any of a number of ways: more storage, more water capacity, more seating space, etc.  This “construction” work has clearly been done in an informal way, sans any engineer or permits from the City.  The owner just hires some workers and oversees their work doing what he wants done.

Over time the restaurant owner has added two huge water tanks up on the hillside behind the restaurant. (Water systems in Brazil are generally gravity-based, so water is pumped to a tank higher up than where it is needed and gravity moves it down to faucets below.) In order to keep the restaurant supplied in water, a water tank truck arrives every morning to pump water up into the tanks above.

Here’s the problem. A restaurant employee must scramble up the rocks to the platform where the water tanks are located to facilitate their filling.  There is a small walking trail now worn into the hillside, but it is not terribly safe. (Cue dark sound effects.)

A couple of weeks ago the employee who was assisting the water company in filling the tanks slipped on the hillside, hit his head on the rocks – and died.

So the “freedom” to build your restaurant without pesky city permits or construction designed by engineers is now paid for by a dead employee.

The restaurant closed for three days – and is now back open for business.  But what to our wondering eyes should appear – but an engineer-designed metal stairway and rails around the water tanks.  Duh!

The personal liberty that is so palpable here in Brazil does not come without risk or consequences.  I’m prepared to take some of those risks, but employers should not be able to put their workers at risk in the service of saving themselves a few bucks. Some government oversight and enforcement can be a good (and life-saving) thing.

All work and no play makes Jim a dull boy

I knew the day would come when demand for my simple “English Polishing” conversation classes and casual business/career consulting tucked in between explaining phrasal verbs would start to actually keep me busy. Add to that requests to provide written translation services – and suddenly I am very busy.  OK, well, not busy by my old San Francisco American Cancer Society 60 – 70 hour work weeks busy.  But for a guy who has gotten used to working 10 – 15 hours a week for the past three years, this drawing up lesson plans/exercises, working with students and meeting deadlines thing is starting to feel like real work!

The good news is that by working in the private teaching space I earn considerably more per hour than when teaching in a language school.  And the economies of teaching groups go into my pocket, not the school’s.  Being a native speaker allows me to charge more for both classes and written translation.

Although, when you add up the health care benefits, the 13^th salary, paid vacation time, contributions to one’s retirement by school employers, etc. perhaps it all evens out or is maybe even better at a good paying school.  But the monthly financial reality for me, at the rate I am currently working, feels much more liquid as a private instructor.  (If I worked as many hours at home as I did in the schools – I would definitely make a lot more – but as I have said before: we did not move to Brazil to make a lot of money.)

Feed the pig!

Also- things can be really feast or famine.  One month I’m getting a flat, sore butt sitting in front of my computer all day (working), and another I am out enjoying the beach all the time, but having to run to the ATM more frequently.

All in all I’m getting to enjoy the work, and the more lesson plans I have banked the less time I have to spend on same for new students.  But I really sell myself as a customized teacher.  If (for example) your business is in computer graphics, I’ll make plans and exercises that grow your vocabulary in that area specifically.  Or if you are prepping for a big job interview, we focus right in on what you need to get the job.  There is no avoiding a little extra work prepping for these clients.

It’s all about balance.  Being my own boss is wonderful.  For the past 20 years in the US I was always in leadership/decision making positions.  Here, it drives me up a wall (and I can sometimes be insubordinate) being treated so poorly by managers.  Better I work on my own.

So for now I am busy.  But I relish being able to take time off when I choose.  And if a job looks hard or the client appears to have a lot of disposable income – I can charge more and see how it goes.  If I over-reach and miss out on the work, well, there is always the beach.

Expatriate Salary Purchasing Power Parity

 Let me start out by saying that I am neither an economist nor a human resources professional.  I’m sharing here some information I have learned from mining the depths of Google, trying to stitch it all together into a coherent post.  Learning about the comparative realities of living here or in the USA (I’m sticking to just one country for simplicity’s sake) is both fun for the expat (“I knew I wasn’t crazy – that shit is expensive!”) and cautionary for the lovebirds contemplating a move figuring it will all work out somehow (goddess bless them!).

The first thing to understand is that economies are different on many different levels: the price of things, the salaries people can earn, the taxes one pays, the non-cash (and deferred cash)  benefits people earn over time, how value depreciates over time, how the banking and credit systems operate, what services are provided by the government, etc.  In the case of Brazil and the USA – believe me – they are two different worlds that do not easily equate/translate.

Most travelers think in terms of the currency exchange rate: “Oh Brazil will be an affordable vacation destination; the exchange rate is in our favor, unlike London (for example).”  Which may well be true, but moving here to live, work and retire is another matter altogether.

For the new resident, the impulse is to do a quick calculation in your head converting currencies to decide if something is expensive or not.  But currency exchange rates give misleading comparisons because they do not reflect salary purchasing power differences.

To try and sort this all out (OK, not all of it, but enough to wrap your head around it) let’s look at three different ideas: cost of living, salary purchasing power parity, and comparative salaries across borders.  This is a vastly simplified view, but as I came to discover online, this notion of understanding how one’s life will change financially when moving abroad is insanely complex and has birthed a whole industry of companies willing to sell you “calculators” and personalized reports to help you see into your future.

Cost of living.  

To help me understand this topic I relied heavily on the website http://www.xpatulator.com/ where they lay things out in a pretty simple way and offer more detailed analysis for a fee.

Simply put, the cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. When comparing the cost of living between different locations the objective is to calculate the difference in the cost of living expressed as an index, or a broad set of cost points that you can compare in each location.

So in the case of the cost of living comparisons listed at Xpatulator they take 13 different “baskets” of costs – things like groceries, furniture and appliances, education, healthcare, household costs, personal care, recreation and culture, transportation, etc.  and compare these aggregate expenses – this index.

Using their index they came up with this ranking of the most expensive cost of living locations in the world.

April 2011 Cost of Living Ranking: Country, City

1. Japan, Tokyo
2. Venezuela, Caracas
3. China, Hong Kong
4. Switzerland, Geneva
5. Switzerland, Zurich
6. Japan, Osaka
7. Brazil, Sao Paulo
8. Japan, Nagoya
9. Liechtenstein, Vaduz
10. Norway, Oslo
11. Brazil, Rio de Janeiro
12. Australia, Sydney
13. Japan, Yokohama
14. Brazil, Brasilia
15. Australia, Canberra
16. Denmark, Copenhagen
17. Russia, Moscow
18. China, Shanghai
19. Angola, Luanda
20. United Kingdom, London
21. Vanuatu, Port Vila
22. Australia, Melbourne
23. Australia, Perth
24. Korea Republic of, Seoul
25. Singapore, Singapore

New York City in the US of A is listed as #43.  You can see it is no longer all about the US front and center.  The WORLD (including Brazil) has become an expensive place to live!

Salary purchasing power parity.

According to the folks at www.Xpatulator.com the core strategy driving expatriate pay programs globally is the principle of protecting an employees’ domestic income and spending power, irrespective of global location. In the short term, exchange rates, even when averaged over a period of time such as a year, are not a good measure of the comparative value of a salary in relation to its comparative international purchasing power.

In simple terms the salary purchasing power parity is the rate of salary purchasing power that equalizes the purchasing power of different currencies, given the relative cost of the same basket of goods at the exchange rate versus the US Dollar. 

But I would add there are still differences in the QUALITY of the goods and services bought.  For example, a home washer and dryer in the Sates might finish a load of jeans from start to finish in less than 2 hours.  In Brazil is could take upwards of 5 hours. Or hiring a plumber to reroute your water lines to remodel your kitchen may take half a day in the states and four days here, depending on who your local plumber guy is, and given the concrete nature of building construction here.

Comparative Salaries.

This one may or may not surprise you.  Brazilians (and expats finding employment in the local market) earn jack shit compared to their US American counterparts. [You have to separate out those US workers who are working here with an international company earning a US wage – more on that later.]

Where was I? Oh yeah – jack shit.  For this section I am relying on some dated information, but it was the only good listing of salaries I could find AND that compared the same jobs between the USA and Brazil.  Special thanks to Expat American Living in Brazil and a post he posted some time ago.

So the salaries are a bit old (2001 – 2004), which could mean the numbers cited are low-balling it.  Actually, given the boom in the economy in Brazil of late (and governmental increases in the minimum salary), chances are the salaries are now a bit higher in Brazil. But given the serious economic realities in the US of late, the salaries listed may not be all too off.  In any case, I am trying to compare apples to apples – even if they are slightly old.

I’ve taken just 6 typical jobs across the spectrum for comparison.  Go here if you want to knock yourself out with additional comparisons.  I’m offering the somewhat current currency conversion rate of US$1 : R$1.65 and expressing the US American salary in both dollars and reais for ease and because we are looking from the living-in-Brazil perspective.

Are you sitting?  Monthly salaries, on average.

Computer programmer: Brazil – R$4,114  USA – US$3,088 (R$5,095)  +24%

Teacher: Brazil – R$745  USA – US$4,055 (R$6,691)  +798%

Accountant: Brazil – R$3,671  USA – US$3,370 (R$5,561)  +51%

Professional Nurse: Brazil – R$1,766  USA – US$3,168 (R$5,227)  +196%

Car Mechanic: Brazil – R$649  USA – US$2,526 (R$4,168)  +542%

Bus driver: Brazil – R$762  USA – US$1,594 (R$2,630)  +245%

Ouch.  So now if you loop around back to the cost of living: rent, the price of a car, a movie ticket, a new computer… the reality is that these prices can be significantly higher here in Brazil (cars are R$40,000 – R$75,000 easy) yet the earning power of workers is significantly lower than those in the USA.

In short: if you move from the USA to Brazil - you are going to take a hit, maybe a BIG hit.  Lower wages, higher consumer prices. I’ll repeat what is often said: Brazil is not for beginners.

If you are looking for a reason why Brazilian children live with their parents well into adulthood (perhaps even all their life), look no further than how scarce money is and how expensive everything else is.

The lucky ones are those expats who are working here for their foreign company and are earning a wage that their company has calculated will provide for the same relative spending power as back home and as a result provide for a similar standard of living here.  That’s why their salaries appear so great. But even if you ask them, I bet they will report having to live on a budget.

The moral of the story for Luiz and I is to live simply and to be as local as possible.  We do miss the extra income that allowed us to be globe trotters for many years.  But we work so much less now and enjoy so much more quality time together.  We did not move to Brazil to get rich, or even to live large.  We moved to re-prioritize our lives.  And that we have done.

My advice?  Save a boat load of bucks before you make your move.  You will need it to help smooth the transition.

OK – so that’s my best swing at it. What do you think?  What did I get wrong?  What would you add?