Happy Christmas

I’m back in Birkenhead (UK) for Christmas. It should have only taken 18 hours or so to get from Quito to Manchester (via Madrid and Heathrow). However, runway snow and other hassles put paid to that plan. In fact the plan fell apart pretty quickly. It should be simple leaving Quito, as they have an intercontinental airport, slap bang in the city centre; an air disaster waiting to happen, but awfully convenient.

So we set of at 6pm on Friday for a westbound trip to Europe. However, the flight from Quito to Madrid stops to pick up passengers at Guyaquil airport, which is on the coast and consequently to the East of Quito. And it wasn’t so much as a quick stop as a disembarkation then waiting for a different aircraft to take us on the actual flight to Madrid. We are behind schedule, tired and 200 miles further away from our destination than when we started.

But eventually we take off for Madrid. On arriving there we find that our connecting flight is cancelled due to snow at Heathrow. But this is not so bad, we would have missed it anyway, and we get given a night in a hotel and tickets for the next flight in the morning (7am). Trouble is, that flight gets cancelled too, then the next one, and the snow situation is getting worse at Heathrow. We eventually wangle a flight to Amsterdam and when there ask if we can change our destination from Manchester to Liverpool. Presumably because of all the flight chaos none of the airlines had any issues or extra charges, they just wanted rid of stranded passengers.

We arrived at Liverpool about 10pm on Sunday, 24 hours later than planned. In that time we visited 5 different airports in four countries and had at least eight different boarding cards each. But at least we made it. Unfortunately our luggage was not so lucky. One case limped home four days after us, the other two are missing in action, presumed dead.

Work Visa

Ecuador is an interesting country to come to work in. But the work visa situation is a major a problem. Whereas many countries actively encourage the arrival of native English speakers, Ecuador’s overly bureaucratic systems actively stifles it.

We came in on 12-ix visas which you arrange in your own country via the Ecuadorian consulate. However even these are expensive and require a lot of paperwork. They let you enter the country and study or work for six months. But then of course you need to obtain a full work visa to stay any longer, and that is where it gets tricky. There really is a lot of paperwork this time, and now you are based in the dragon’s lair* of bureaucracy (Ecuador). Doing it on your own probably isn’t an option; you will still be queuing up somewhere when your current visa expires. So there are two other routes. You can pay a lawyer several hundred dollars and they will bribe the correct people and make it happen.  Alternatively, you find an employer who will do the paperwork; this is what we have done.

So this week, after several hours travelling to and from and waiting in government buildings, we were issued with work visas. Work visas with errors on them as it happens, so it’s back to queuing on Monday. But at least we have something. We paid out $230 each to the government for these visas. Our employers may or may not charge us an undisclosed sum for the paperwork. Bizarrely they won’t tell us how much. This is because they now have control over our very presence here in Ecuador. If they fire us, our visas become invalid and we have to leave, we can’t just search for another job. So this gives them considerable bullying power. Add in the mysterious paperwork fee, and they can also refuse to hand over any pay that they owe us, claiming that they are recouping their paperwork expenses.

There probably are some good jobs here, but most of the language institutes are used to having a rolling stock of semi-travellers, who they are not treated as teaching professionals. I also have a University job. They pay more than twice as much as the language institutes, but were not able to provide a visa.

There are other options of course. One language institute here arranges ‘cultural exchange visas’ for its staff. They provide Spanish lessons to the English teachers, hence it’s not work it’s a ‘cultural exchange’. But these only give you six months, and as far as I know are non-renewable.

So how and where you work here is completely dependent on what type of visa you have and who is willing to facilitate it. Effectively you can’t change jobs, and the employer who does facilitate your visa then owns you. Nice.


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*Despite what the idiotic TV show suggests, dragons live in lairs, not dens.