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Moving to Brazil - Marica - RJ

Filed under: Ask Us - December 29th, 2005

Your Question

hi, my husband and i are interested in buying a property in marica. i have a ton of questions. we have five dogs, and a small goat. are people friendly to animals, to americans who want to live peacefully and quietly there? my husband is a contractor and would like to build or refurbish homes. i am a registered nurse, certified in medical and psychiatry. i would like to know about hospitals, jobs in the nursing field, payscale, etc. we are friendly and kind people who want to share our lives with the people there. it seems to be a beautiful and friendly country. do people speak english? what is the native language? what is the cost of living? how do dollars convert? are people welcoming americans who want to live there? any information you could give me would be greatly appreciated. it is hard to find info on marica on the internet. we have found several oceanfront properties that we are totally in love with. is marica an island or connected to what mainland? nearest city? median income? wages? are there many americans who live there? we are not typical americans. we live quietly on the planet, we are not wasteful, we are very respectful of other people and their ways of life. we are not wealthy, just fortunate. we want to make friends and share our life with others and help in whatever wya we can. thank you for any information you can share with us.

Our Reply

To find you some information about Marica, I went to the Marica City Hall website. There I found that Marica is a city located only 60km (1 hour away) from Rio de Janeiro. The population of the city is approximately 92,227 inhabitants, being located in area of 362.477 square meters. Marica´s main activities are business, civil contruction, agriculture, fishing, and tourism. Marica is surrounded by beautiful beaches, lakes, waterfalls and it is vey busy during summer holidays. If you would like to see a map of Marica city, just visit http://www.marica.rj.gov.br/, and you will be able to see its exact location, as well the nearby cities.The website if very useful, since it tells you information about news in the city, information about the governament of Marica, tourism in the region, agenda of events, and more. Currently I do not know if there are many Americans living there.

To answer some of your questions, I can say that people in Brazil are very friendly to animals. Almost every single house has an animal, either it is a dog, a cat, a bird, or a rabbit; so I don´t think that you will have any problems in bringing your animals to live with you in Brazil. In general, people in Brazil are very friendly, so if you find good neighbors they will certainly help you to adapt yourself here in Brazil.

Regarding jobs opportunities, I could say that Brazil is better at offering jobs for people with a university degree. For your husband, since he is a contractor I would suggest he consider opening his own business or affiliate himself with a good company down here. If that happens, he could probably make around 3000 to 5000 reals per month approximately. For nurses in Brazil, I would say that the approximate wage is 2000 reals if your speciality is surgeries and 800 reals if you distribute medicine, at this time I do not know the wage for a psychiatric nurse.

Our native language in Brazil is portuguese, but some people do speak english. Almost everyone in Brazil knows a little bit of english, but not everyone is fluent. Since english courses are very expensive and not a lot of people can afford classes, that could even be an option for you if you would like to teach it. Brazilians like talking in english with native people. You will notice this when you get here. People are very easy going and they are not afraid to chat with you.

As for now, the convertion of your dollar is more than double when compared to our money brazilian reals. Your dollar is now costing 2.30 reals, so it means that anything you see is less than half price! The cost of living in Brazil is expensive when you talk about clothing, vehicles, gas, eletricity, and phone bills. The only thing that is very affordable is food. I think that if you are coming here to live, you will find things cheaper compared to what you pay in America, but there will always be really expensive things down here that might be cheaper for you in U.S, such as eletronics, which are very expensive here. Brazil is a gorgeous place,with nice weather, friendly people, different kinds of food and drinks, and knowing a little bit about our culture, will make you have no problem for adptading yourself in our country.