Job Discussion Forums

[john_n_carolina]

....yes, good points JAM -- i realize we're getting off the visa topic a bit so i won't continue away from the original post.

but, one thing to distinguish about EC and the US/Canada is:

although armed robbery is a very scary thing...i seriously doubt any mugger in the US would actually pull the trigger. the prison sentence for armed robbery + manslaughter would be life. on the other hand, in EC they wouldn't even catch the guy.

i was in the Guayaquil area in Jan 08 playing soccer with my team out in the campo. across was a tienda and one of the players told me the story why it was closed. the owner was robbed at gunpoint by teenagers and refused to give up the $70 he had made that day. he was shot 10 times and they left with their $70 and nothing from the tienda.

towards the end of the day, i jumped on my motorcycle with the rest of my team because there was word that a gang was close by and they suggested getting out of there faster than lightning.

anyways, back to the original topic i guess.

i think the visa change will help the schools that can get 1 year visas for their teachers. otherwise, you will a large EC % of English teachers now.

[just_a_mirage]

One more ironic thing abou these visa changes. I have a permanant visa, but my son doesnt. We were at Migracion trying to see if his could be extended (it couldnt, so he is forced to go back tomorrow), but there was a huge sign there that said in spanish "Thanks for visiting Ecuador, hope to see you here again soon"). I have to think it is going to cut down on their tourist dollars if people have to wait 9 months between trips. I also work with missionary groups who like to come every couple of months for a continuing project they are working on. This will also impact that, and the people they are trying to help.

[ajarnlilly]

In my attempt to find another teaching job that would cooperate in giving me the documents necessary for the work visa, I found that NONE of them knew about the new law and ALL told me they thought they could get all the teachers they need from the pool of expats who are married to Ecuadoreans or to people there on some kind of long term visa or the flow of backpackers. One told me they were willing to hear from my lawyer on what is required to support an applicant for a work visa, after I told them how simple it really is for the employer and that it costs them nothing.

They do not want to be bothered, especially with that aspect of the law that now says all such visas must be obtained before leaving the home country. Ecuador, like most if not all LA countries, is not in the habit of hiring people on the basis of a resume/CV.

I haven't been able to grasp why Correa issued this presidential proclamation, as I am told it is, not a change in the constitution. It was made effective immediately, not at some future date that travelers could use to plan and deal with the change. It would seem to cut tourism income in half as well as generating ill-will from all those countries affected by it, that is, North American, European and Asian, as well as most Latin American countries. I have a lot of respect for what Correa has done and says he wants to do, but as an economic decision/policy, this puzzles me.

I was also told by an Ecuadorean English teacher that it is the policy of the Ministry of Education to promote the teaching/learning of English as the language of world trade. But the actions belie the words, and my friend is as frustrated by this as anyone. (He also told me they have a saying: "Here come the gringos. Here come the dollars.)

Re: volunteers/missionaries, this will obviously cut back by half the time these valuable groups may spend here on the tourist visas they are accustomed to using, also a big loss for Ecuador in money and services. The requirements for getting a volunteer or work visa to Ecuador have become nearly as onerous as those required for immigrating - to Ecuador or many other countries in the area.

Mi pregunta sigue siendo, por que?

[john_n_carolina]

...lily, lot's of good points there and questions raised. the general consensus between the new "Bolivarian" states is to reject any help, money, subsidies, international presence and to brand the Western world as the "devils" of society/world.

they kick out ambassadors, won't pay their past loans, reject any military help (including the Coast Guard), and close their borders. and where do they look for help instead? Iran and India. it's pretty obvious what's going on.

when i was in EC in '05 there was even a general undercurrent of students moving towards learning French instead of English because who in their right mind would ever want to live in the U.S./Canada or even want to know English.

i'm not sure tourism will suffer too much from this as most people really only stay 2-3 weeks. but the new presence of thousands of Chinese, Iranians, and Eastern country-origin citizen will only increase the problem of corruption they are facing. i might be wrong but it seems like this is a "convenio" between the East to get their feet in the West and close to the Western borders. why isn't Correa visiting with Australia and setting up economic trade programs there? surely, they have excellent military technology and modern energy systems.

they'll be OK in the short run but i'd like to see what happens in 10 years when 30% of the U.S. is on electric cars and the price of oil is $30 a barrel.

[john_n_carolina]

...Justin -- how do you think this will affect the TEFL degree market? a TEFL degree in EC is pretty useless now if you can only get a 3 month visa?? seems to me that most TEFL'ers would like to stay at least 1 year.

[just_a_mirage]

I may be wrong, but I think you can apply for a student visa for more than three months. I dont know how easy it is at this point, but until I got my permanant visa a few months ago, I was able to work on a volunteer visa. I was told that I could not, but other people told me that I could get a RUC number and facturas to work if I went and applied at SRI. I went with my visa, and passport, a copy of my apartment contract and a planilla for electric, and was given a RUC and the form to have facturas printed in less than ten minutes.

[JonnyBravo]

Lilly -- Such a bummer to hear your Ecuador experience didn't work out. It appears that if I ended up in Ecuador in October as planned, I'd have been in just as bad of a situation. How recent was this change? Any news coming out of Ecuador on how schools are adjusting and whether they are more likely to hire people out of country before they arrive? How long were you in Ecuador for, Lilly?

Jon

[ajarnlilly]

I was there 88 days. Around 2 months after I arrived the presidential proclamation came out that no 90 day (T-3) visas would be renewed. And would not be available to former T-3 holders until +9 months has elapsed.

See above for previous posts on the affect on teachers. Briefly, I have been repeatedly told by school officials that they believe they can get enough teachers from the pool of spouses and dependents of those who have resident or long term visas for any number of reasons. I think they are overly optomistic, but time will tell.

The law also states that work visas, volunteer and cultural exchange visas and student visas (not legal for working but it is done) must be applied for and received in your home country and, cannot be converted to if you arrive in Ecuador on some other kind of visa. Another Catch-22s: any conversion of visas must be initiated prior to 30 days of your current visa expiration.

In short, if you want to work independently in Ecuador, before you go you had better get a LEGAL work contract (I was given a bogus one) that is approved by the Ministry of Labor, or the appropriate documents from a school that uses cultural exchange or volunteer type visas. In addition, in your home country, you have to get a police background check, notarized in the district is was issued in, then translated into Spanish, then sent to the Ecuadorean Embassy closest to you (mine is more than a thousand miles from my hometown and when I called them they said I had to appear in person!) to be apostilled ("legalized"), along with a medical document stating you have no communicable diseases (including HIV), which has had the same 3 steps applied to it. Translation and apostilling can cost from $10-50 each page. And these docs must not be older than 6 months when they arrive at the Embassy with your application.

In a friend's experience, there is no "example" work contract from the Ministry of Labor, so it is a crap shoot as to whether the contract you submit is acceptable to them. For this and many other reasons, it's almost a prerequisite to have a lawyer do this on your behalf.

The other thing to remember is that if you go to work for any organization without being legal, you have no recourse if they don't pay you. What has happened to some I know, is that the 90-day visa expired before they got paid and they ended up working for free with no legal way to complain about it.

What has happened lately at Universidad Tecnica del Norte (UTN) in Ibarra is that native speakers were finally given a "work contract" in which the expiration date had already passed when it was given to them, and they had already worked several more weeks without contract. They DID then get paid, after working for 2.5 months with the run-around, insults (why don't you get money from your mommy and daddy?) and unbelievable stress, not to mention poor relationships with landlords and the friends they had to borrow from to pay living expenses.

My Ecuadorean co-teachers kept saying to me "This is Ecuador. Be patient. You'll get the documents you need. You'll get paid eventually." These teachers all teach in the local high schools, so are not sweating the non-payment. In fact, I never got the real documents, and in fact, I never got paid the $120 they owed me before I quit due to no documents being provided me. These co-workers finally got it, I think, when I said "You know, I can't just say 'tranquila' to Migracion. I can't just say to them, 'this is Ecuador, be patient'."

And contrary to johninmaine's assertion that people don't care to learn English, I found everywhere I went that students were eager to learn English from native speakers and knew very well that they were getting cheated by having classes from non-native teachers. I have no doubt that I could have made a living just on private classes, group and individual, if I had had a way to stay there legally. I just wasn't willing to do it illegally.

I even had offers of marriage for the permanent visa! Cost ranged from providing help opening a language school, to $500-$1000 "reward". Men, it is reported, need to pay $1000-2000. And, for $2000, one lawyer offered to provide a "work contract" saying I was working for his office. Seeing that as potential for an unending source of paying out more "rewards", I just couldn't go that way, either.

People told me before I went there that Ecuador is the most corrupt country in LA. I assumed they meant the government, but now, after my personal experiences and observing those of a half dozen others, I have the sense that it is part of the national character. And their world-view just doesn't include understanding that some people live by rule of law and that these changes in visa law have consequences, both for the foreigner and the schools that would like to hire them.

On a brighter note, I hear that the Foreign Minister, who was responsible for making some of these interpretations of law, has just resigned. It remains to be seen whether the new Minister will be better or worse, as foreigners are concerned.

[ajarnlilly]

Bravo, to fully answer your question, I think there are still opportunities in Quito, which, as I recall was of interest to you. I was in Ibarra, which is definitely less sophisticated than Quito, and I went to Ambato and some other smaller towns.

I think it is well known that it is difficult to get hired without a face-to-face meeting in Latin America, but with tightened visa laws in more than Ecuador, schools are going to have to adjust. Schools in Quito are more likely to be able to adjust their attitudes and world-view than those farther away from "civilization".

One problem I encountered: some schools said they were willing to provide the documents needed, but they have no experience doing this, so they don't know what constitutes a legal work contract, for instance, and Migracion and the Foreign Ministry are not helpful on that issue.

The other thing is that you will definitely need to have a degree and a TEFL cert, for these schools to offer a work contract while you're outside the country, if you want to teach English. If you want to "volunteer" for other types of work, there are many good volunteer organizations that have the know-how and experience for the documents needed. But you end up paying for the "priviledge" of volunteering there. Not that you can't then make some money on the side tutoring, etc.

Justin is in Quito and can tell you more. Buena suerte!

[Justin Trullinger]

Okay, I've been meaning to contribute to this thread again for a while, as it seems to be going on in interesting directions.

I've just been looking into visa laws in Ecuador, and this is what I got:

Citizens of most countries that English teachers come from are entitled to 90 days of tourism (and tourist visa) in any one year. (The US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and much of Asia) People from these countries need not apply for a tourist visa before travelling, as it can be stamped at the border.

It is illegal, and has been since before I came to Ecuador, for a tourist visa to be upgraded or changed to another kind of visa within the country. This was sometimes allowed in the past, and has sometimes been allowed recently, but it has been illegal since the 90s. It appears to be getting more difficult and less frequent. (The last case I can attest to was in September, but this was an exceptional case. I don't think it's going to get done much at all in 2009.)

This is inconvenient, and English teachers aren't immune. I just wanted to make the point that it (no upgrades or visa changes from tourist visas) isn't a new law, just enforcement of an old one.

There have, however, been some recent changes. In the past, 6 months (180 days) in a year was the tourist limit. It now appears to be 90. What's most unfortunate is that this change was made over night- so some who came to the country with 180 day plans got limited to 90 days, which is a heck of a raw deal, in my opinion.

A grey area: In the past, though the law stated (and still states) that a long-term visa had to be obtained in the bearer's country of origin, in practice they were frequently willing to issue them in any foreign consul; many potential English teachers came over on tourist visas, then went to the Ecuadorian consul in neighboring Peru or Colombia to get a new visa. This was a pain in the $%&#, but was reasonably doable.

I do not yet know if this loop hole remains open. If I hear or see anything, I'll let you know. But I'm personally not counting on it. And it was never legal anyway.

There was talk and rumors of further reductions, eventually limiting tourist time to 30 days. My ministry contact has heard the rumor, but says that nothing indicating this plan has ever come through official channels, and he thinks it's just hysteria. I personally would write that off as gossip, but I'll keep checking.

Just in my opinion, this won't impact tourism dollars perceptibly. It may cut down on the backpacker/long stay tourists, but they're the tiny tail end of the market. The $$ comes in with the package tours and the middle aged, who only stay a couple of weeks or maybe a month max.

Another poster asked about the TESOL "degree" (I'm assuming we mean cert) market. So far, on our cert course, we're suffering a bit, but not incredibly. Numbers this year are about 15% down from last year, though I don't think that the new visa laws are the cause. Next year's early registrations show the same trend continuing, but no worse.

[ajarnlilly]

Thanks for the great information and update.

I have to ask, though, whether your experience with hiring from overseas is limited to Quito? I inquired of several employers in other cities before going to Ibarra and none of them even responded! UTN was the only responder and they just said come on, we'll give you docs for a work visa when you get here. Which turned out to be a $2000 mistake when I believed them, and the time for me to work out something else was eliminated by the new tourist visa law.

Regarding whether tourism dollars will shrink, I can only say that my friends wanted to stay a month in Banos, but had to leave. So they are spending that month in Peru, instead. And they are pretty much top of the line travelers, not backpackers. And they would have come back to Cotacachi for several weeks, where their extra bags are being kept, but will now have to have them shipped out, plus their outbound tickets from Quito had to be changed as they could not get back in to leave from there. I also know of quite a few rich gringos who are in the habit of spending 4 or 5 months of northern winter in Ecuador, who will now be limited to less than 3 months. They are not really tourists, and will not go through the hassle of getting the alternative long term visa, so are now considering which countries are more hospitable to stays of 4-5 months. With worldwide recession/depression coming on, it seems foolish to eliminate this source of income, but, hey, what do I know?

[Justin Trullinger]

I guess time will tell. You've certainly listed a few tourists whose spending in Ecuador WILL be affected. Are their cases typical enough to be noticed in the big picture? We'll find out soon enough. Still seems to me like the majority of tourist income is in the package holidays, but I may be wrong. I'm not sure how much margin there is in your friend.

I do imagine that this will cut down on illegal teaching on tourist visas, which I imagine was part of the reason.

Quito's been my home for half a dozen years, and it's certainly the part of Ecuador I know best. The schools I listed are Quito schools. Schools I know in the provinces are much less likely to hire from overseas- frankly, less likely and able to hire foreigners at all. Pay is much lower in most cases, and the schools are much less administratively savvy about how to go about it. Here's hoping they'll learn. THe organisation I work for has programs placing foreign hire teachers in schools in smaller cities, but only a few each year, and it's hard. (Sorry I didn't mention this to you, Lilly, but you weren't interested in the areas we have programs in, and by the time I knew much about your situation, you were here. Which means that with the visa laws as they are, I couldn't help.)

There's another part of this thread I've been meaning to respond to, and have been thinking for a while about how to do it appropriately. There are some sensitive issues here, so please try to take this in the way it's intended.

I'm sorry that you had such a rough time in Ecuador; I do work hard to make things easier for foreign teachers here, though it's slow going, and success is rather less than I would like.

But some of the things that are getting said about Ecuador on this thread seem really unfair to me. I understand saying unfair things when you're frustrated, and I frequently do the same, usually about Ecuador. But somehow, publishing it here seems different.

[Saigonjack]

21st Dec 2008
As someone who is thinking about moving (back) to Ecuador I was nervous after reading some of the things posted about tourist visas so I contacted a person who deals with this issue everyday in Ecuador and his reply states that NOTHING has changed.....

As of a couple days ago (when I talked to a lawyer friend in Quito) you can get the 90 extension but you have to leave the country and then re-enter. Until two or three months ago, foreigners in Cuenca could get the extension at the immigration office on Av. Lazo. Several folks I know who are here on T-3 visas (the tourist stamp you get in your passport when you come into Ecuador) take 2 or 3 day trips to Peru or Colombia to get their extension on re-entry.


I was ALSO pointed to a very RECENT article on a blogsite -

http://blog.pro-ecuador.com

so it seems that all is well

[ajarnlilly]

As I mentioned on Dec 14, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has resigned recently and this may be why the non-renewal policy has been reversed, if indeed it has.

My personal experience and that of 3 people I know is that as of Dec 3,it was not possible to renew a 3-T visa. I got it in writing from Migracion in Ibarra and had it translated for me by a perfectly bilingual Ecuadorean who does translation for a living.

My friend also tried to renew in southern Ecuador and was denied at the end of October. Two others tried in November, as I did, and were also denied. Each time, the new law was cited as the reason. So, to say that nothing has changed is simply wrong. As I mentioned above, everyone who wasn't actually trying to renew a T-3, including lawyers and government officials, didn't seem to know anything about the new law, but Migracion did!

During this time that "lawyer who works for the government in Quito", as mentioned on the pro-ecuador site, was still telling people that nothing had changed, despite the fact that people were being denied renewals, so I don't put too much confidence in what he says. If the law has been rescinded, he should just admit that and not try to act like it never existed.

After my experience of having the law changed willy-nilly and with no warning and no grace period, I would still be leary of going to Ecuador with plans of staying longer than the initial 90 days. Who knows when or whether they'll change it back again?

For Justin, who said:
"
-you came here without previously checking visa requirements. If you had, you could have avoided a lot of hassles.

(FALSE)

-you came here and violated laws (working on a tourist visa) Is it so surprising that, as you were working illegally, the employer you got was one who also behaved in an illegal (and in my opinion, reprehensible) manner?

(Huh? As you and everyone on this board well know, Ecuador has been tolerating tourists teaching for many years. You might say it is a "local custom". And as a matter of fact, I worked only 2 days before I told Dr. Congo that I wouldn't continue if I didn't get the legal work contract he had promised me and he cursed me out, in English, and hung up on me. This was after more than 4 weeks of getting the run around from him about that contract, and having traveled to Quito with the bogus one he initially gave me, been refused the work visa solely because of the work contract not being legal and NOT being told by them that changing the T-3 visa to a work visa was not permitted.)

-you tried to violate other laws (changing a tourist visa to another kind is not permitted, and never was. Any consulate could have told you this) Is it surprising that the attorneys you met, in pursuing an illegal transaction, were dodgy characters?

("and never was"?? Get real! I met many people there who had already done it! Nearly everyone, local and foreign told me it was routinely done. Again, "local custom".)

-without legal residence status, a landlord who rents legally (with a legally enforceable contract, paying tax on the income thus received) cannot rent to you. This may make it more likely that you get a dodgy landlord, because the legit ones couldn't touch you."

(I showed my landlord the "work contract" I was given by UTN, before any of us knew it was a fraud, so neither of us thought there was anything illegal going on. Your assumptions of my culpability and the total innocence of these sleazy characters is.....well, dodgy.)

Wow, thank you, church lady! So, now I'm the criminal and all these liars and cheats are MY victims?

I never asked any lawyer to do anything illegal, nor did I ask any landlord to do anything illegal, and I really resent your inference that it was any other way. Your statements of what "any consulate would tell you" are completely bogus, since they told me different things at different times, and told different things to different people.

One person I know of went to the Consulate near his home and applied for a work visa and was given, instead, a student visa, and told "this is better and cheaper and faster". This person wasn't a student, hadn't applied for a student visa and was stunned by this turn of events, but afraid to refuse it.

You say - in regard to the lies I was told by the head of the language department of UTN, a large University in Ibarra: "If you do some of your own checking, you'd be harder to mislead, though."

If I can't believe this man who claims to have a doctorate from the US and is the head of a department at a large U, and since I couldn't get the same answer twice in contacting the Ecuadorean Embassy in the US (email addresses and phone numbers on their website were no good, I might add) just how do you imagine a person could " do some checking on your own"?!? and be able to rely on it?

And then you said: " I do get tired of foreign visitors who make little effort to find out about and follow local customs and laws, have a bad time, and then blame the country. "

Ha! When the "laws" and the "local customs" are at odds, which does one rely on? I had more than a "bad time". I lost over $2000 for simply agreeing to teach English at a major U in Ecuador, after getting as much information as I could possibly get, much of it conflicting.

Then you say: "more people have helped than hurt me" Well, I guess that says it all. My experience was just the opposite. I found out that at every turn, if I you just paid the bribes they wanted, the law could be interpreted any way you wanted, and many other people there told me the same thing, both Ecuadorean and foreign. That's exteme corruption in my book, and my pockets just aren't deep enough for the depth of corruption in Ecuador.

[Justin Trullinger]