Why I came to Madeira
During my vacation in Madeira, I had already decided that I wanted to live here for a while and drove around the island in my rental car, knocking on hotel doors and introducing myself: “I am a yoga teacher and would like to offer courses in Madeira in the future.” I had made the decision to return to the island for a few months to live, work and find out whether I could really imagine living here.
The door to the Hotel Atrio
One day, it was January 2021 – in the middle of the Corona period – I drove to the Hotel Atrio near Calheta. The hotel is run by a French couple, very successful, very experienced. I was allowed to offer yoga there – and spontaneously got a second offer: a part-time job at reception.
As many of the guests are German-speaking, the hotel was looking for someone who spoke German – and I was a perfect fit for the team. So I accepted.
Suddenly a hotel employee
When I moved to Madeira, I started working in a hotel for 20 hours a week – for six months. I earned €390 net per month. Even though the current minimum wage in Madeira is around €915 gross for full-time work, this is very little overall – especially from a German perspective. The cost of living may be lower on the island, but for someone from Germany, this salary often doesn’t feel like a living wage.
The last time I had worked in a hotel was when I was 21 – during my Work & Travel year in Australia, where I did housekeeping for several weeks. Now, around 20 years later, I’ve returned to a hotel – but with a completely different professional background: a degree, training, over 20 years of experience working with people – and my job as a yoga teacher.
I not only learned a lot about the hotel industry, but also about myself. I helped with bookings, gave hiking and rental car tips and answered inquiries from tourists. And suddenly I was the person behind the counter – responsible for emails, phone calls and welcoming guests.
Spotty writing and first Portuguese
Part of my job was to check and send off the kitchen orders for fruit, vegetables, dairy products – a lot of it was handwritten. I still remember how difficult it was to decipher the spidery writing. I simply couldn’t decipher many terms, especially if you had never heard the words before or if abbreviations were used. – But I liked this way of learning. Jumping in at the deep end and just doing it.
Over time, I understood more, dared to speak and realized how much this everyday life helped me to connect with the language and the culture.
Lunch break with the gardeners
What I particularly liked was the contact with the other employees. Many of them came from Ecuador or Venezuela, spoke Spanish, I barely did – but somehow we understood each other. During our lunch breaks, we laughed a lot and talked with our hands and feet.
One of the gardeners now works in waste collection. When I meet him in Paul do Mar, we still greet each other warmly. Such connections mean a lot to me.
Insight into real life
I also helped with breakfast – at the time, nobody was allowed to help at the buffet because of corona. And I saw how hard many employees worked: five to six days a week, often for a salary that was far below what you would expect in Germany.
I wanted to experience this, not just from stories, but to feel for myself what it’s like to work for such a wage, to be part of a team – in a different language, in a different place.
Half a year that has achieved a lot
After six months, I knew that I wanted to focus more on my actual work again – on yoga, coaching and writing. Financially, the job wouldn’t have been worth it in the long run. But I learned an incredible amount: about myself, about Madeira, about other realities of life.
And above all, I made contacts that remain with me to this day – in supermarkets, on the street, in everyday encounters. For me, it was real integration: not just being in the yoga room, but in the middle of life on this island.
This post is also available in: German
