About La Vida of La Loca

This is part one of an as-yet-to-be-determined number of question and answer sessions about me, my life and the stories that come up on this blog. I hope this fills in some of the blanks.

Why is your blog called "Austin to Africa, Brasil to the Bay"?

Because these are 4 significant places in my life, especially considering the reason I started writing here in the first place. When I started this blog in April 2005 I was living in Austin, Texas. I'd just accepted an offer to move to Mozambique to work with a couple of my old friends from business school at a consulting firm they'd started the year before. Before actually moving to Africa, I took a month to hang out in Brasil, a place that is near and dear to my heart. The final part of the title refers to the San Francisco Bay Area where my mom currently lives, and where I think there's a good chance I may move at some point as well.

So what was the reason you started this blog?

To keep in touch with friends and family during my time here in Africa. Basically a blog was the easiest way to let people know how I was doing without having to write mass e-mails. I never expected a blog to lead me to such an interesting community of artists and writers, nor did I anticipate the desire it would light in me to write about and share my past experiences.

Where are you from originally?

Albuquerque, New Mexico.

What is your connection to Brasil?

When I was 15 I decided to go on a year-long student exchange. I can't quite explain my motivations, but part of me just knew that greater things were waiting outside the comfort of my own home. I looked at the catalog of all the destinations where you could choose to study and decided on my top 3: Brasil, Hong Kong and Venezuela. There was something about Brasil that fascinated me and I was thrilled when I got my top choice and was placed with a Japanese-Brasilian host family in Maringá, a city of about 400,000 in the southern state of Paraná.

I had such an amazing year abroad that when I finally had to return home to the US, I dedicated most of my time and energy to finding a way to get back to Brasil. I would spend every spare dollar on plane tickets and managed to go back at least 9 times over the following 2 years. It was almost like I'd never left Brasil!

In my second year at the University of New Mexico I decided to study abroad again, this time at a business school in Rio de Janeiro that had an exchange agreement in place with my college. At that point multiple Brasilian students had come to UNM on exchange, but no American students had gone down to the school in Rio. I was the first one!

In January 2000 I moved to Rio and kicked off the best year and half exchange I could have ever hoped for. I studied Marketing at IBMEC, one of the country's best business schools, and in the process met a group of guys that would have a significant impact on my life several years down the road.

Don't you have a house in Brasil? How do you manage it since you're obviously not living in Rio?

Right before I finished my second exchange in Brasil, I discovered this fabulous pink villa from 1910 for sale in the heart of my favorite neighborhood, Santa Teresa. I went to the open house and fell in love, but at that point it was basically an impractical dream to have a house like that in Brasil.

Then, in a sad but serendipitous turn of fate, my grandfather passed away in New Mexico the month before I was supposed to leave. My mom and I discussed the details of the inheritance and I proposed to her the possibility of using it to buy the pink house in Rio. She asked me to put together a presentation detailing the positive and negative points of my proposal as if it were a real business deal. I did, and managed to convince her that it was a sound investment, if nothing else from a financial perspective because the Brasilian Real had just crashed to 1/3 of its previous value that very same month. After some significant jumping through hoops, the pink house, or casa rosa as it's now known, was ours!

That was over 6 years ago. The original plan was for me to go live in the house as soon as I'd finished my MBA. Well, that didn't happen but we are able to manage because we have a very responsible live-in housekeeper that looks after everything in our absence. In fact, in an illustration of how small the world is, the person who looks after the house used to be B.'s nanny.

Who is B.?

B. was my best friend and classmate when I was living in Rio. We lost touch about a year after I moved back to the US, then randomly ran across each other one day on Orkut (Google's social networking site) while I was living in Austin. About a week later B. called me and filled me in on his life.

In 2003 he went to Mozambique as a volunteer for an organization that works with smallholder farmers in the Chimoio area. While on assignment, B. realized there was a huge opportunity for consultants in the country (lots of foreign investment and donor projects going on, but no qualified people to put together proposals and do fundraising) so he decided to stay. Along with a couple of partners, B. started a consulting company and convinced both me and Ricardo to come work with him in Mozambique.

How did you meet Ricardo?

We were classmates at the business school in Rio. We went on a couple of dates and there was definitely some chemistry, but we didn't have a relationship back then and ended up losing touch when I left Brasil. Ricardo moved to Mozambique a year before I did, and I only got back in touch with him via e-mail while trying to arrange the details of my trip to Africa. He picked me up at the airport when I arrived here for the first time, and our romantic relationshipas well as our professional one began from there.

That's the basic way we met. I want to save the details for another post because it's a great story.

So you and Ricardo didn't move to Mozambique as a couple?

No, thank God. I think I would have really resented him if we'd moved to Mozambique together, especially if I'd "followed" him here. Our relationship is a uniquely African happening.

Where is Ricardo from?

Rio de Janeiro.

Why do you call him Rico?

That's the nickname his family and close friends call him. Thankfully it's not pronounced like "Rrrrrrico, Suuuuave!" You actually say it like "Hee-Koo" because in Brasilian portuguese you say the 'R' at the beginning of a word as if it were an 'H'.

I had a hard time making the transition. Now I only call him Ricardo when we're in a business situation or if I'm frustrated with him about something.

What language do you and Ricardo speak at home?

Portuguese. He speaks fluent English, but since we met in a Portuguese-speaking context, it's actually really weird to speak anything else to each other.

What kind of work do you do?

Fundraising for local businesses and investment projects in Mozambique. A typical job goes like this:

A client hires us to help him/her get money to start a business, expand an existing business or get grant funds to support a project. I sit down with the client and get as much information as possible about the company or project idea. I then write a business plan that tells the client's story in a compelling enough way that a bank or donor will hopefully be convinced to invest.

What are B. and Ricardo's role in the business?

Ricardo is the front man of the company and deals with all the clients. He is responsible for negotiating our contracts and resolving any disputes that may arise. B. is an Excel whiz and does the financial modeling for all of the projects we work on.

How long have you lived in Mozambique?

Almost 1.5 years.

How long will you stay there?

We don't know for sure at this point. It's very probable that we'll be here for another 2 years. Rico and I want to save up enough money before we leave Africa so that we'll be able to cover our living expenses for at least 6 months wherever we decide to move next. This may take a while...

So what is next for you?

Also have no idea at this point. We may go back to the US so that Rico can get an MBA. We may move to Italy for a year to be with my grandmother. We may go back to Brasil. Or we might end up in some random place like Dubai or Moscow for all I know.

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What else do you want to know? Ask away and I shall answer.