Between Worlds

Regina Alves has measured exactly where the tattoo underneath her left wrist should be so that it is still covered by her shirt sleeve. She hides the motif, a clef, while at work – not because she must, but because she wants to. “Every person has two sides”, says the Brazilian native. “I live out my artistic, romantic side in music and my serious side at work.” However, these two sides do not just mix on Regina’s wrist, but throughout her life.

“I would like to study abroad. Can I perform here?” she asked for two years, as she went from bar to bar, weekend after weekend, in her hometown of Fortaleza to perform and raise money. Her plan was not to go just anywhere abroad, but to Europe. To put it more precisely: to the place where they offer the best education possible. “I quickly knew”, she says, “what I needed to study to get a foothold in Switzerland.”

Switzerland, Graubünden (Grisons), Hamilton Bonaduz: Regina Alves’ tasks as a production engineer include organizing services and coordinating the engineers in the field, as she explains in English. “I basically translate between them”, says Regina. “To do that, I have to understand both perspectives.” In terms of organizational structure, she works at the interface between customers and engineers. In terms of location, Regina can be found at her workplace on the lower level of the Hamilton building. The Swiss, US and Graubünden flags fly in front of the lobby as they flutter in the wind. “I love the view here”, says Regina. She uses her lunch break to go for walks, past the field where you can pick you own vegetables, and with the forest-covered mountain ranges always within sight. “But I only do that when it’s warm enough”, she adds. “After all, I’m Brazilian.”

During her first few months at Hamilton, she worked in production. It was a department like the one she had run in Brazil. “I didn’t mind the change”, she says. “That’s how I got to know the other side” – and Regina had no choice but to speak German right from the beginning. “Many people who work in production barely speak any English”, she remarks. “And anyway, it’s more polite to speak German in Switzerland.” Three times a week she attends a B2 German course, e.i. the level for independent use of language. “Usually, all the courses together take five years”, she says. “I would like to complete them in two.”

However, words are not always enough, no matter how many of them you might know. “If I can’t find the words”, says Regina, “I find a song.” Every week she takes the love songs that ensue from this lack of words and practices them with her band, “What the Funk”, in a rehearsal room in Chur. She got to know the members of the band after she had sent an e-mail to the HR department at Hamilton, saying “If you want, I’ll play a few songs”. HR responded by booking her for the company Christmas party. One of her 1,250 colleagues at the party approached her and said: “I play bass and have an idea for a band. Would you maybe want to jam together sometime?” At the rehearsals and performances of “What the Funk”, he plays bass guitar, while another member wields the saxophone. Regina Alves plays guitar, drums and sings. “The band is like a small family”, she says and adds: “Like my team at work.”

She left a lot behind in Brazil: friends and relatives, her network in the music scene, her first gigs in front of several thousand people. But she has achieved everything she could have wished for since she made the decision to come to Switzerland 10 years ago. Except for one thing: “I get the German articles wrong 90% of the time,” she says. “But I try again and again anyway.” Giving up is for others.