In November 2016, Belany Lopes, then 22 years old, took on the role of a croupier. Behind a table, she methodically separated and spread chips of different colors across the green felt while murmuring numbers.
“I was calculating blackjack. At first, it seems difficult, but with practice, it gets easy! It’s interesting,” she told Lusa months after arriving in the Chinese region to study at what was then the Macau Polytechnic Institute.
Nine years later, Lopes recalls that she decided to enroll in the Business Management degree, specializing in Gaming and Entertainment Management, partly “due to the promise of already having a guaranteed job.”
“Any young person coming from a humble family and going to university will think that employment is definitely the main focus,” said the young woman, who had previously dropped out of a Biochemistry course in Brazil.
In 2015, the Macau Legend group signed an agreement to build a tourism project on Santa Maria Island and the Gamboa waterfront in Praia, which included a casino with a 25-year concession contract.
It was the largest tourism venture planned for the country, with an expected opening in 2019 and an estimated investment of 250 million euros—about 15% of Cape Verde’s annual economy. Shortly after their arrival, the Cape Verdean students had dinner with Macau Legend’s leader, businessman David Chow Kam Fai.
He told us that by the time we finished our studies, the hotel-casino in Cape Verde would be ready,” recalls Lânia Fernandes. “In the first year, it was always reinforced that we were important, that we would be the first, that there was a plan for us,” says Belany Lopes.
But in April 2019, the Cape Verdean government agreed to revise the deal, with Macau Legend promising to invest 90 million euros in the first phase of the project, set to open in 2021. The start of the COVID-19 pandemic affected not only David Chow’s company but also the students.
In January 2020, most of the young people were in Cape Verde on vacation when Macau decided to close all educational institutions to try to control the novel coronavirus. The Cape Verdeans finished their degree with only online classes. “We never even had a graduation ceremony,” laments Jeremias Fortes Vaz.
The current Macau Polytechnic University (then the Polytechnic Institute) confirmed to Lusa that the Business Management degree, specializing in Gaming and Entertainment Management, has not admitted any Cape Verdean students since then.
But in April 2019, the Cape Verdean government agreed to revise the deal, with Macau Legend promising to invest 90 million euros in the first phase of the project, set to open in 2021. The start of the COVID-19 pandemic affected not only David Chow’s company but also the students.
Lânia Fernandes emphasizes that the Polytechnic staff still tried to help the Cape Verdeans find work in Macau’s casinos. “But because of COVID, we never got to do that,” the young woman regrets. Macau Legend suffered another setback in November 2020 when Cape Verde’s financial regulator rejected the company’s request to establish the Sino-Atlantic Bank.
“They always remained very optimistic. But many people always said that if that bank wasn’t approved, maybe the project wouldn’t move forward,” recalls Jeremias Fortes Vaz. The recent graduate still looked for work in the archipelago but eventually gave up.
“I left the interior of Cape Verde to go to Macau, then came back, but I had no connections. I speak four languages, sent my resume everywhere, got one or two interviews. After a year of the same, I thought: There’s nothing here for me,” explains Fortes Vaz.
Shortly after their arrival, the Cape Verdean students had dinner with Macau Legend’s leader, businessman David Chow Kam Fai.
Lânia Fernandes interned at the Ministry of Family, Inclusion, and Social Development for ten months through the Employment and Vocational Training Institute. “I have dreams, I have ambitions. I can’t stay in Cape Verde earning 20,000 escudos [181 euros] a month,” says the young woman.
Both Lânia and Jeremias Fortes Vaz ended up emigrating in 2022 to Massachusetts in the northeastern United States. But they don’t regret their time in China.
“My trip to Macau completely changed my life,” Fortes Vaz insists. “I learned things that I’ve carried with me—different cultures, cuisine, how a first-world city functions. So, it was all worth it.”
For Belany Lopes, the degree in Macau led to a master’s in Hungary and a job at a wind turbine manufacturer in Portugal. “Everything I learned at university, with the people I met in Macau, I feel like it opened doors for me to be where I am today,” says the Cape Verdean.
Platform with Lusa
