Rafa Moreira

From burn-out in Brazil to setting down roots in Rotorua

Brazilian Rafael  (Rafa) Moreira has worked with owls, rescued sea turtles, captured alligators, fought forest fires and had a hand in managing parks embracing the Amazon jungle.

Two years working in banking, including its billion dollar sector, left him with severe  burn out. Now he’s living in Rotorua where he’s the behind-the-scenes ideas/systems man at one of the city’s oldest businesses, McLeods Booksellers. 

 All this has been shoehorned into 34 years.

There’s one very important addition to his list of realised dreams, he’s met the blonde, green eyed woman of his youthful imaginings, she’s McLeods manager-buyer Jemma Morrison.

To set the record straight their personal union came about well before their workplace one.

They met through a dating app, but there’s a lot of international ground to cover before In Profile expands on that.

So we will backtrack to where Rafa’s life began in Brazil’s Belo Horizonte, a city whose name in English equates to Beautiful Horizon.

Early years

 Broadening his horizons has always been a Rafa Moreira speciality. It began during his four and a half years studying for a degree in biological science at his home city’s Pontific Catholic University where his first semester was spent studying owls in the laboratory.

 His second semester took him to Sao Paulo in Brazil’s south east where he rescued sea turtles. It was the far west’s turn to next host him, there he became involved in alligator research.

“I hunted them, not to kill them but measure them.”    

 His sixth semester placed him in Brasilia, the nation’s purpose built federal capital replacing Rio de Janeiro in 1960.

In Brasilia monkeys came under his scrutiny as he studied their behaviour.

“They are very smart animals, they are very fast learning and able to respond to some tests in a very quick way.”

 During his seventh and eighth semesters he began work as a volunteer fire fighter on home turf.  “It is very dangerous facing natural fire, you see people in a completely unpredictable situation. I had to learn to climb up to [hovering] helicopters and jump out of them while carrying heavy fire fighting gear.”

When he graduated he could have become a lecturer or teacher, but that wasn’t the real Rafa.

 Instead he travelled 2000kms north from his home town to a city crossed by the Ecuador Line to work as a project manager with an organisation focusing on sustainable development by using natural resources. To get to and from work he crossed the equator twice daily, no passport required either way.

 “I was working in the Southern Hemisphere but living in the Northern Hemisphere. The people in the area were hunting and cutting the forest in an unsustainable way, we were teaching them to preserve the forests and live in harmony with it.”   

 That ‘forest’ is what we know as the Amazon jungle.

 The multi-million dollar project was funded by a not-for profit organisation working in partnership with the giant Walmart chain and US government.  

Two years on he returned to Belo Horizonte where he was recruited to become part of a team managing protected parks. 

“We were managing 64 at the same time, one of my roles was to be part of the forest fire fighting crisis committee managing efforts to fight forest fires and attempt to prevent them.

“In Brazil  forest fires are very complex, if a fire starts it is very hard to bring it back [under control].”

Rafa sat at the same decision-making table as the district governor and leading officials “It was a high powered job, my passion was management, administration, environmental services in general.”

They were passions that drew the attention of the banking sector -  Rafa was head-hunted.

Banking burnout

“A 360 degree turn came in my life, I started to work in banking as a business accounts manager beginning with very small businesses, mostly one man bands. I think I was quite successful, I used my life experiences, thought outside the square.”

Another bank noticed him and bought his skills. For doubting Thomas’s “bought” is exactly what happened.

“In Brazil banks buy staff like football players.”

 The bank which purchased him assigned him to work with billionaire-owned businesses, he quit after two years.

“It was a very high pressure job, giving 100 percent isn’t good enough, it has to be 150 percent at least. At the end of my banking career I was spitting blood literally,”

Rafa took himself to a doctor.

“He said to me ‘Rafa, you are 30 years old, doing well in your job, earning good money but here you are extremely stressed, you are  damaging your health. Do you want to die at 40 from cancer or something else chasing money?”  There was a click inside me, I decided to do things I had always wanted to do not just work, work, work”

That’s when the setting agent for his boyhood dream of visiting New Zealand gelled.          

“I remembered myself as a ten-year-old looking at a world atlas. I saw Brazil on the left side, Oceania on the right. I wanted to visit somewhere, I knew it wasn’t Australia. I wanted to come to New Zealand long before New Zealand became world wide famous for its haka and Lord of the Rings. I don’t know what the fascination was so I guess I was born with it. I feel like I was here in a previous life. When I put my first foot down in Auckland I felt something I never felt in Brazil, I lived in seven different cities in Brazil always looking for home and never found it. When I landed at Auckland I felt finally my soul had come back home.”

That was in 2018, his Kiwi life started at an Auckland English language school.

“When I was 15 I started four months formal English training but had to stop because my parents didn’t have enough money to pay for my study. When I came to New Zealand my English was extremely raw, I had learnt some from listening to rock music.”

He was so keen to swap his Portuguese native tongue for Kiwi speak he galloped through the six month course, completing it in four and flying through the qualifying exam.  

He spent a year studying the New Zealand way of doing business “which I was always curious about and wanted to learn.”

It was during this time that Jemma Morrison entered his life.

“That’s a funny story, we met through a dating App, our chatting was so interesting I decided to come to Rotorua and meet this lady.” His laugh bounces off the walls of the house that’s now their ‘together’ home.

“We had a couple of meetings then we started to become serious, we had a one year long-distance relationship travelling weekends to be with each other. Last year in February on Valentine’s Day I came to Rotorua to live. I used to joke with friends I like Auckland but I prefer New Zealand.

“Rotorua is one of the best cities because we have so much cultural heritage, iwi are embracing it, I haven’t been around that before. It is a small city that does things positively which of course makes a difference for the community in general, I have so many plans here.”

Bookshop career

 “Currently I am working in a 77-year-old bookshop, my contract is for business, marketing and public relations but I say it is driving Jemma and Gaby [assistant manager] crazy because of my business background. If one of them says ‘I have a dream’ I am already planning their dream, if they want to make a podcast I already have one planned out. I think it is a natural thing [for me].”

Rafa's initial position wasn’t nearly so lofty. When he and Jemma began living together she roped him in to do McLeods heavy lifting

There was plenty of that, by its very nature McLeods is inundated with boxes of books all day ever day, they weigh a tonne.

 Rafa brands that period of his career as “the inward goods guy.” He also dealt with invoices and began serving customers.

When long-serving background man Peter McKellar indicated retirement was looming Jemma mentioned to the shop’s owner’s David Thorp and his wife Lynne Jones that systems were Rafa’s thing they knew he was the person they were after.

He was ‘stoked’, not a word he was familiar with in Brazil, he adores the place.

“This shop is part of Rotorua’s history, when I arrived it was almost going on the market. David and Lynne decided they wanted to retire which is fair enough, they wanted to enjoy life, their grandchildren. Imagine closing the doors on this unique place, what a sad loss for the city.” 

Rafa refuses to let McLeods disappear into the history books. 

“My goal is to drive it for the next 25 years and celebrate the centenary of McLeods.” If it were to go on the market would his hand be up to buy it? “Absolutely, I would make an offer and keep McLeods as it is with its old fashioned charm, it would be heartless to change it, it is perfect as it is.”

Naturally his enthusiasm is shared by Jemma “We are in strong harmony, it is so wonderful.”

That harmony was sealed last year when Jemma undertook a 366 day swimming challenge. Rafa was her support crew accompanying her almost daily but stopped short of swimming with her for much of that time. However by the end of the challenge he’d bought a wet suit.

“I can’t swim in New Zealand the water is too cold in the lakes, waterfalls and the sea.” 

When that challenge was accomplished the couple invested in a horse christened Marmite.

Then there’s the business they are in the process of launching, selling essential oils.

“It’s totally different from selling books, we are going to import them and work in the most ethical way.”       

Soppy as it may sound meeting Jemma was another dream fulfilled.

“I had a feeling in my mind of meeting a blonde, green eyed girl, I was hearing this call before I met her, when I did it was spontaneous, natural. We live together, we work together, we share a bed, a horse and five cats. Some people think this would be a burden but for us it is extremely natural. Of course sometimes we have clashes, we both have strong personalities.

“Our life together is worth celebrating so every week I give her roses.”