Canadian Richard Algajer came to Macau via a somewhat circuitous route. He was teaching in Colombia, South America and on his way to take up a job in Mongolia. It was summer vacation and so he stopped off to visit family in his hometown Edmonton, Alberta. Attending a football game, he sat next to a complete stranger – a teacher with The International School (TIS) here in Macau – and they got talking. It was a serendipitous meeting and the rest, as they say, is history.
Whilst considering Macau, there were also work opportunities in Lahor, Pakistan and Santa Cruz in Bolivia.
“So one of the questions I asked interviewers in each location was whether there was an ice skating rink. I’m a keen ice hockey player and the fact that Macau was the only one with an ice skating rink, albeit a small one, was another deciding factor!”
A teacher for 20 years, Richard’s specialty is English literature and English as a second language taught through the lense of social studies. As TIS uses the Alberta school system and Richard’s teaching qualifications are certified through this same system, it was all the more fitting that he took up his role here in 2009.
When he arrived, fortune smiled again. He befriended another teacher at the school who was in the process of buying an apartment. His friend was betting on Macau and could foresee the growth potential in real estate. After visiting several properties in tow, Richard caught the property bug.
“I’d bought in foreign countries before – I owned my own place in Colombia – so was not intimidated with the prospect as many newly arriving expats may be,” he smiles.
The home he settled on here in 2011 is located just off the main one-way road into Old Taipa Village. Originally three bedrooms, the previous owners had opened it up to bring in more light and converted it into two double bedrooms – master at the back with spacious walk-in dressing room, and guest room at the front – so as to enlarge the living room. There are one and a half bathrooms, a little front balcony, and off the kitchen is the piece de resistance, a charming covered terrace that serves as the focal point of the apartment for dining and entertaining.
“I chose the village because of its proximity to everything I need. Buses are frequent. I have a bicycle, and from this corner of the village I can get to work in 5 minutes” he explains. “There’s a sense of belonging and community here and a good mix of expats and locals. I like strolling through the narrow streets, you feel safe. I have great neighbours, and I know the owners of most of the restaurants and bars around, and many have become friends. There’s a good village vibe”.
“When I moved in to this place I contemplated doing a full renovation job, but after chatting with some designers and without any convincing design ideas to improve the use of space, I decided against it, and kept things as is.”
Richard did however give the apartment a fresh coat of paint throughout, added some modern light fixtures, and lifted up some ugly white linoleum in the living room, revealing to his delight, a perfectly good wood parquet underneath which gives life and light to the space.
Artwork on the walls and a few ornaments are an eclectic mix from his visits to China, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and Bali. A Chinese sign, kept from the previous owner’s home altar, asks of the gods to ‘Protect this house.’
One of his prized possessions is a series of five paintings of Taipa Village Banyan trees, painted by an ex-colleague at TIS, Melissa Atenfessu. Bought in a silent auction, all proceeds went to a school in her native Ethiopia.
The rustic charm of the apartment is most apparent when sitting at the dining table in the covered extension off the kitchen. The large windows look out on an adjacent neighbour’s vegetable patch with its neat lines of lettuce, choi sum and spring onions, and jackfruit, mango and papaya trees; a higgledy-piggledy collection of old buildings, some with Chinese tiled roofs, others simply with corrugated iron; a line of washing on a neighbour’s balcony; several cats lying sunning themselves; a smartly painted yellow two-storey house edging the garden; all against a backdrop of central Taipa highrises in the distance.
A pleasant breeze runs through the home. One can hear the gentle rumble of traffic as it passes by, and in the mornings and early evenings a cacophony of birdsong. There’s a quaint and restful feel about the place – so centrally located, yet seemingly so rural.
The kitchen, with its smart black and stainless cabinets and black countertop, though small, is a user-friendly and convivial space especially as it adjoins the dining terrace. Both Richard and his girlfriend Cindy Ali enjoy cooking. Cindy, a kindergarten teacher at TIS, is of Indian heritage from Trinidad & Tobago in the West Indies, so they tend to cook quite a bit of spicy Indian food.
“We make a lot of our dishes in the slow cooker” Richard explains.
A countertop gas hob, an IKEA Butcher block, a coffee maker, “definitely no microwave, there are more healthy ways of heating food”, and a juicer for nourishing breakfast smoothies completes the tools for the couple’s culinary escapades.
The apartment has one more secret to divulge. Up the main staircase of the building one comes out to a back door. This opens out on the cobbled one way street running left to the crest of the hill, to a tree lined plaza and the lovely Our Lady of Carmel Church. Built in 1885, its neoclassical architecture and yellow and white coloured walls are so quintessentially Macau and it offers a peaceful respite to the more frenetic busyness of the village below.
Richard’s 1,000 square foot apartment is now on the market for sale. Whilst in no particular hurry to sell, he is at heart a rolling stone and his love of traveling will eventually mean leaving Macau.
“I’ve been very happy in this home but I’m not emotionally tied to possessions,” he says, “I can’t love something that can’t love me back”.
