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Quitting the Welfare State - And-Friday the 13th. (Hardcover)
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Quitting the Welfare State - And-Friday the 13th. (Hardcover)
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The book began to be put into written form only after the author
had been cajoled into doing it by a few of his colleagues who were
constantly hearing the many stories of the crazy things that
happened during his journey from New Zealand when traveling
overland through Central and South America which took six months in
1956 and to end up in Brazil penniless. The crazy stories however
still continued to flow after he had landed a job with a British
company as project engineer on the construction of a large
irrigation dam being undertaken by the Brazilian Government in the
interior of the North-Eastern State of Ceara. They still kept
coming during his four year term with the company which took him
all over Brazil and afterwards when he went out on his own in the
construction and engineering business in a partnership which he
eventually had to sever. However, once deciding to put pen to paper
he realized that he could not commence one third through the story,
he had to go right back to the day he was born and his early
childhood when a traumatic event occurred in his family which he
realized in later life which definitely had its effect on his inner
being and mental approach to life. It left him with a feeling which
without knowing it, he was on his own from that moment and would
have to fend for himself. The date of his birth happened to be
Friday the 13th. Which some folk looked upon as unlucky but he
thought the opposite. The story briefly covers his first quarter
century, educating himself through university to graduate in civil
engineering only to realize that he was living in a totally
socialistic state which had evolved as New Zealand began climbing
out of the Great Depression. He could not see any future working as
a civil servant for the next forty years with no real challenges to
contend with. He decided to quit New Zealand and the welfare state
and head to where no Kiwi had ever been, - Central and South
America. When he mentioned ?Brazil? to a few of his colleagues he
was told that he would either end up having his head shrunken by
Amazon Indians or be swallowed up by an anaconda. He decided to
take the risk. He walked across the border from Uruguay into Brazil
in November, 1956 and eventually arrived in the city of Sao Paulo
with not a penny in his pocket. It was not Friday the 13th. but it
could have been as within two weeks he was employed by a British
engineering company who was seeking an engineer to managed a
contract they had just landed and the Canadian engineer they had
contracted had taken one look at the place, only to catch the next
plane home. To be thrown into such a responsibility at the age of
27 and not knowing the language or the people he was to work with
was probably the challenge he was looking for, - but was he up to
it? The engineering experience he gained during the next four years
way outweighed anything he had learnt at university or would have
working for the Ministry of Works in NZ. His partnership with a
Canadian engineer never worked out and after several years he was
forced to sever the relationship to start all over again. From
there on he enjoyed considerable success engaged in projects
throughout both Central and South America as well as other
countries.and became associated with several UK companies as a
director of their operations in Brazil. He never lost contact with
his country of birth and in fact as the only Kiwi with a business
background in Brazil he was continually being requested for
assistance from both the NZ Government and NZ companies in their
endeavours to establish business and trading opportunities. His
connection with New Zealand finally lead to him being appointed the
first ever Honorary Consul and later Consul General of his home
country, the tenure of which he retained for a period of fifteen
years. He relates many weird stories during this perio
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