Dubai: A woman, standing by the side of a running track, eager to hand him a drink when he needed it the most. Indian expat Dhiren Harchandani called her an angel – a stranger who simply handed him a drink, gave him a warm smile, and reminded him that he was part of Dubai’s community.The woman standing on the track, though, had a powerful reason for being at Kite Beach at the crack of dawn – she was looking for a fresh beginning.35-year-old Brazilian expat Maria Pavani, who has lived in Dubai for 13 years, is no stranger to fresh beginnings. Growing up in the small town of Araranguá, Pavani always knew she wanted to explore the world.“I always felt like I love Brazil and the beautiful Nature there, but I always thought I was meant to see bigger things,” she said.At 18, she travelled to Portugal to see what life was like beyond the sunny shores of the South Atlantic.“I wanted to explore the world the city of 50,000 people that I had lived in all my life,” she said.After four years of travelling across Europe, she returned to Brazil in 2012, and found a job as a waitress at a café in Florianópolis, a bigger city than her home town, and a place that was witnessing the first days of the culture of specialty coffee.“For me, coffee had always been simply a drink my grandmother made. It was only when I began working at the café that I discovered the world of coffee … that coffee actually begins as a fruit, flowering after three to four months, before producing these two cherries that carry the seed within. How we extract the seeds, roast them, grind them and then submit them to hot water and the destruction of those beans at the end is what coffee is. It was the first time I saw an espresso machine that cost AED 100,000 and realised how big the world of specialty coffee is,” she said.This passion for coffee grew over time, with Pavani sharing her journey on her social media accounts. A school friend, who had since lost touch, reconnected, asking her if she’d like to move to Dubai.“He said he was working at a hotel, and they had an opening for a barista,” she said.At the time, Pavani knew very little about Dubai, and spoke no English. Her experience as a barista, though, helped her land the job after she ‘Google-Translated’ her way through the interview. The job paid AED 800, but Pavani was ready to finally explore the world.A new worldHer first few years in Dubai were transformative. Even though many of her immediate friends were Latino, she also met people from all over the world, learnt English just by dogged tenacity, forcing herself to speak even when she struggled with the right words.“There are courses to learn English, but I couldn’t afford any of that. The only way I have gotten anything in life is by jumping right into the opportunity and figuring it out as it goes. It was the same with English and today, honestly, I find it easier to read a book in English than in Portuguese,” she said.Her love for specialty coffee led her to her second job in Dubai – working for a specialty coffee roastery in Dubai and in just a few years she was able to tap into her passion and experience to become a sensory judge at the World Barista Championships and even became an Authorised Specialty Coffee Association Trainer (AST) with the Specialty Coffee Association.“I went to Guatemala as well, to be a speaker at a panel and certify 15 coffee farmers on sensory skills they needed to have to understand the sweetness, bitterness, acidity and aftertaste of coffee beans,” she said.In 2019, Pavani decided to turn entrepreneur, to create products around this world of specialty coffee. In 2021, her company Tres Marias Coffee generated USD 1 million in revenue.‘We figure out a way forward’Life, though, always brings with it the ups and downs, and the one lesson Maria has learnt is to show up, no matter the circumstances.“Life can be heavy, and oftentimes it is because of things that are not in our hands. When you are a self-made person, you understand that you are nothing without people around you. You and I, we are the sum of the interactions that we have. All you can do is show up with good energy and give it what you have, and when I do that, I find that life feels lighter,” she said.Another key pillar in her life has been the community she has found in the city she now calls home. When her business suffered losses this year, she decided to reach out to one of her oldest friends in Dubai, to find out if there was a new product they could come up with. As a fitness enthusiast, Pavani too runs 5k every day on the very same track where she met Harchandani.Inspired by her own experience of slowly moving away from coffee to matcha and taking collagen shots each day, Pavani decided to make a coconut matcha collagen drink with her friend who had a press machine that could make the drinks. Together, they packed 60 bottles and stood at the running track to offer their newest product to the runners on the track.The community that she has seen show up for each other all through the 13 years in Dubai.“What we plant, we harvest,” she said. “I don’t have everything figured out, but I know I’m going to get there. If I continue to show up for myself and my community with positivity, the good I put into the world will somehow find its way back to me,” she said.“Even when you look at how he [Harchandani] reacted – making a video, posting it, sharing the energy, that’s what makes life lighter. You have to be resilient. Show up, improve ourselves, connect with people and be there for each other. I feel that in Dubai, even the regional conflict a few months ago, made us embrace resilience and brought us closer together,” she said.Inspired by her own health journey, Pavani pivoted to providing plant-based milk options for coffee houses across the UAE. Photo credit: SuppliedAnd where there is resilience, there is little fear of failure.“Resilience is something that becomes a part of you when you live here for so long. That’s something we’ve learnt from the country. We’ll protect ourselves, we’ll protect our peace and figure out how to move ahead,” she said.“And when things don’t work out, you have to pivot. That’s what it means to be an entrepreneur in Dubai. We figure out a way forward,” she added.So, as Pavani stood at the Kite Beach track, handing out bottles of her latest product to runners on the track, the small interaction with a runner who called her an ‘angel’, reminded her of what she has always known about the city – we are all in this together.
