At 24, having finished her law studies in Spain, this Venezuelan woman arrived in London. Despite her good command of English, she didn’t think this was the best time to look for work here.
Javier Duque
Carola Vives, 24, arrived here in London from Cascais in Portugal. She sees this new change in her life as “a kind of second meeting with my childhood”.
Because her life has developed on both sides of the Atlantic.
At 24 she has already lived in Venezuela, Colombia, Portugal, Spain, and now the United Kingdom. She was born in Caracas in 1987, where she spent only 4 years because her father had to leave his native land for health reasons. But 1991 was not the best time to live in Colombia. It was the period of the drug lord Pablo Escobar and things were very dangerous: something which affected her family when a bomb went off in the building where they lived.
After this the family left for Portugal, her mother’s country of origin.
Carola remembers her mother saying that she was going to like the new country they were going to, because there were no children sleeping in the streets, or piles of rubbish on the ground. “It was the first thing I looked for when we landed”, says Carola.
They settled in Cascais, a small town 25Km from Lisbon, near to St. Julian’s English School in Carcavelos, where she studied until going to the University of Salamanca.
The reason she separated from her friends – who encouraged her to go to England – and change country again, was to improve her vocabulary and learn to speak correctly; “I already knew English in college and only wanted to improve my Spanish”. After graduating in Law last September, she began the difficult search for work in Spain (where she is qualified to work as a solicitor). “I had several interviews but no success”. Having seen the situation in Spain, and after returning to visit her parents in Portugal, she got the chance to go to the UK. “I had talked to a friend and she offered me a good opportunity” – so good in fact that she didn’t have to pay any rent or expenses .
“My friend was looking after the home of some people who were away, and there was a room free. Of course they knew about me staying there.”
Although she was qualified in Spain, Carola could not practice in the UK as a solicitor – only as a clerk – without another year of study and passing exams.
While she was looking for some work more in line with her training, she did a couple of jobs in “hospitality” to get some money. Work she didn’t enjoy: “Long hours is not my thing”.
Despite this she didn’t get depressed because she was enjoying London. She met up again with friends from college that she hadn’t seen since she went to university in Salamanca. As for feeling accepted by the English, she thinks that, in spite of the short time she has been here, it won’t be difficult. And it helps that she speaks English well. “Immigrants who come here looking for work, without a reasonable level of English, risk being exploited”, she says.
What is sure is that Carola is planning to stay in England only if she finds work that will bring her useful contacts: “But things are not as easy as they say”, she adds.
(Translated by Graham Douglas – Email: ondastropicais@yahoo.co.uk) – Photos: Pixabay
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