Moving to Fortaleza

Hi Liam,

Well, it looks like in your youthful rush to find a new adventure in life you have little if any of the idea of reality.

First of all, you can only stay in Brazil for a maximum of 180 days per year as a tourist and you can't work or study on a tourist visa.

Second, to obtain a VITEM-V Work Visa you must first find a Brazilian company willing to offer you an employment contract and confirm it in writing. Language schools here DO NOT DO THAT. In fact, they don't "hire" employees (teachers) on an employment contract, but rather as "private service providers", which don't qualify for visas. If you were to come here as a tourist, find a job and apply for your VITEM-V Work Visa through the Min. of Labor here, you'd still have to return to New Zealand and attend the Consulado-Geral do Brasil to have them place it in your passport.

Unless you are lucky enough to find a school that is going to fill up your schedule of available hours you're likely not to be able to afford an apartment on your own, and you'd need to purchase furniture. Furnished flats are rare and very expensive. About the only alternative would be a POUSADA (guest house) and they run around R$40 - 60 per day in the low season. If you find a fellow slave, oops, co-worker to share a small apartment or kitchenette with you might be able to get by.

Teachers at the private language schools here make near-slave wages, are paid per hour of actual classroom time, no pay for class preparation or correcting homework, etc., which must be done on your own time. Also in many cases you're going to need to teach at two schools just to fill your schedule or you'll starve. Traditionally they do not receive ANY of the benefits required under labor laws because they are not "employees". (No holiday pay or Christmas bonus (13th salary), no overtime pay, no bus fare, no lunch, etc.)

In many schools you don't need any certification of any kind or even teaching experience. In fact, most schools prefer you don't so they can justify the near-slave wages. About the only qualification required in most cases is being a native speaker.

English IS NOT widely spoken anywhere in Brazil, not even in the workplace. You'll need more than a basic level of fluency in Portuguese just to get by in day-to-day living situations. If not you'd better be prepared to have an interpreter tag along everywhere or carry a small notepad and pencil, hope you're great at quick sketches. In the workplace business is conducted in Portuguese, so you'd need to be able to communicate effectively with superiors and co-workers. If you don't speak Portuguese and haven't mastered the fine art of haggling over prices (part of the Brazilian culture) you'll always get charged "Gringo prices" for everything you buy. (usually 2X or more the price locals pay).

About the ONLY thing that's not going to be a nightmare for you is being a vegan in Brazil, there is an endless variety of fruits and vegetables available, although people will think it odd that you don't accept their invitations to a churrasco (BBQ).

Anyway, now you know the brutal truth... I'd suggest getting out your Atlas and start looking for other countries, honestly. I'm speaking from experience... I've been a teacher for over 28 years, and here in Brazil for 13. If I didn't have my pension from Canada to rely on, I'd have starved to death long ago.

Cheers,
James     Expat-blog Experts Team

I thank you for being honest, I knew it would be a long shot even if it was possible.

Anyway is that isn't possible then what would be your opinion on me going to Brazil after I have completed a Bachelors degree in commerce( In New Zealand ) presuming I could speak fluent, but not native, Portuguese by then. Is there a demand for English speaking commerce majors?

Unfortunately at the moment Brazilian law requires that all employers prove that they've exhausted all efforts to place a qualified Brazilian in any job vacancy before they can hire a foreign national to fill it. All public service positions are (at least for the present) strictly reserved for Brazilian citizens. So as a result it is extremely difficult for foreigners to find work in Brazil. Those graduated in the STEM (science/technology/engineering/maths) professions seem to do a little better.

i have seen alot of ads from HSBC looking for people, Fortaleza isnt a English teacher friendly town, personally i have contacted over 10 different English schools, and all of then but one wanted to hire me and he only wanted to pay me 15r$  (4usd$) per hour

Well Fortaleza isn't English or any other teaching language friendly. I was expecting that things would improve for the Worldcup, it did not.
- Fortaleza is a regional center with no much interaction with internationnal business. There are no big company headquarter, just regional offices. Biggest employers are Ceara gouvernment and town halls. Retail, services and small clothes  manufactories clothings are quite big employers too. Fruits and cashnuts are big business and are exported but this is not a very added value business so it does not much foreign language speaker.
- Tourism is big but only 5% are foreigners and they stay generally in ressort off Forteleza on the Ceara coast
- Small expat community : generally mixt couple, a few pousada and restaurant owners, some retired and a lot of "adventurers"
==> no foreign language requirement
Only people who do well are those who created their own language school (I knew two, actually one closed recently) and those who bought language school franchises.  So actually there is no job for language teacher; people need to become language teacher entrepreneur. Actually I could generalise that to any type of industry: there is no job for foreigners in Fortaleza; only opportunity/solution is to create your own business.