#1429 – Cockroaches, Scams, and Cultural Insights in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now I wonder Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started as Promise continuing with the email from last week's show from our Dave number one You know the first Dave that ever wrote an email here to the expat files as For his latest email. We read the first half of Dave's email last show. Here's the second half. He says Johnny

[00:50] You said in a recent show that the cockroaches where you grew up Were much smaller than the ones you see in Latin America He says I only knew the small variety of cockroaches myself until I was a teenager then I went to a friend's house His house was up against a large field and he showed me that cockroaches that live there I said wow, that's a cockroach That was the first time I saw that kind of giant cockroach you talk about on the show the flying ones Johnny I'm glad I didn't have to deal with those gigantic ones in my house Later, I learned that the smaller variety of cockroaches are called German cockroaches and larger kind that can fly are called oriental cockroaches Okay. Okay me Johnny here. Hmm. Does that mean now in the age of wokeness?

[01:37] She's supposed to call him Asian cockroaches. Who knows? I just know him as the big Disgusting ones that really leave a sickening sticky gutsy mess when you swat him Yuck, it's beyond gross man Anyway, Dave says I don't know if those terms are correct anymore I hope I'm not committing an atrocity against cockroaches by stating all that By the way Johnny my grandmother called an exterminator to get rid of the roaches in her house I'm assuming Dave. She lives in California like you Anyway, he said the first thing the exterminators asked her are they the German or the oriental type cockroaches My grandmother said I don't know I didn't catch the accent Signed Dave number one. All right, Dave. Thanks for that. Always good to hear from you

[02:23] You know, my mother and the entire side of her family were very fastidious You know, everything has a place so everything should be in its place. That should have been my mother's family's model Anyway, she was so fastidious I never saw a cockroach in my mother's house ever to this day and she's in her 90s and really You know when you live that far up north, you know, like Chicago The winter sort of really knocked down those pasty insect populations Unlike down here in Latin America, and I think the very first time I ever saw a real live cockroach Was one of those summers in between college when I worked for the Chicago Street Department and the dead dog crew When I used to have to go into the Chicago housing projects to pick up a dead dog or a varmint or two

[03:08] Man, I never saw homes or apartments with such piles of trash in the apartments in the hallways, man Those people just did not want to put their trash out on the street too much effort I guess and of course, you know when you're on public housing, you mostly don't work That's why you're on public housing and still with all that time on their hands They couldn't or wouldn't take their garbage down to the street and put it in the designated areas They let it pile up in the hallways and in their apartments that's when I think I saw my very first cockroach actually wasn't one it was hundreds and They were all the small German kind none of those big mothers the ones that fly man are those things Disgusting. Thank God those big flying ones don't live up in Chicago It's bad enough when they're creeping around on the floor of your wall

[03:55] But when they take off and start flying first time you see it, you can't believe it So Dave, that was the first time I ever saw a flying cockroach when I first came down here to Latin America And I got to say it was a brand new very disgusting and horrible experience. I didn't enjoy the moment However, I do understand now after learning a bit about cockroaches if you want to keep your house free from them You definitely have to learn something about them So I discovered it's a small non-flying German type cockroach That you see up in the states as well as all over the place down here in Latin America That are most prone to carry diseases and the like and the big-ass flying kind like you see down here in Latin America They're super disgusting. All right, but as far as carrying diseases and such not so much Not much of a consolation though Oh and one more thing about cockroaches besides the fact if you mix up a batch of cougaracha balls

[04:44] I explained how to do that on many past shows you can avoid using toxic bug sprays and like in your own house That's a relief However, the odd thing about those big-ass cockroaches is that sometimes we'll be in a hotel an Airbnb a friend's house Whatever, you'll flip on the light in the bathroom with the kitchen and there'll be a big-ass flying cockroach Flipped over on its back. Just kind of moving its legs around it's not dead But can't seem to get off its back The thing is I found out they have a propensity to flip themselves over on their back occasionally and then they'll just die I mean, they won't die right away. They'll move their legs and kick around for a couple hours or so They'll do that till they die, but still it's so strange How do they end up on their backs and how do so many of them end up on their backs and I?

[05:32] Actually, it's kind of a good and a bad thing. You see one of those you go Oh god a cockroach, but then again, he's gonna die pretty soon. So at least we've got that going for us We don't have to intervene I mean look you can go and squash him which is disgusting or spray him with some bug spray and they will die Really fast then he could sweep him up and tossed him into the trash But don't just try to sweep him up when they're on their backs and their legs are moving because then you just threw him A lifesaver you got to squish him spray him or if you can tolerate looking at him leave him for a couple hours But again, it just doesn't make sense that they more than occasionally flip themselves on their backs and commit suicide I mean look if there was a button here right now I could press and every cockroach would flip over and it's back and die. I'd do it now That's always been a mystery to me. So I checked with AI

[06:18] so AI platforms like grok and chat GPT say those big cockroaches have a high center of gravity and A rounded back making them prone to tipping over which is like I said a very good thing And if they do so on a smooth surface They can't get a grip making it unlikely for them to write themselves and flip back over Hmm, and what's not to like about that? Anyway, just a general observation here I can see no positive purpose on earth for the existence of cockroaches for that matter of mosquitoes or politicians Anyway, just show me that button and I'll press it. All right moving on and in keeping with another promise I'm gonna refer back to an email of last week from Jeremiah who asked me for one when's my next seminar?

[07:06] He'd like to attend and the answer is most definitely in late August more information to come He also state that he and his family of six are planning to move to Paraguay by the end of the year Any advice would be helpful. He said Thanks a bunch signed Jeremiah. Well, Jeremiah I don't talk too much about Paraguay in the early days of this show ten or so years ago Paraguay looked like a pretty good plan B option because there were definite ways to get permanent Residency leading to a full passport and citizenship in two to three years Turns out there were a couple of immigration Agencies that you could contact if you wanted to get in on that program and the cost was so low it seemed too good to be true and in the end it was for many expats and gringos who got scammed out of their

[07:54] deposits and fees and worse and Of course many who made a trip down maybe even more than one trip down and it was all for not That is unless they decided they got a pretty good vacation out of it now way back when and I remember some of the details precisely because I contact to run those agencies run by a German guy Turns out you only had to deposit 5,000 bucks in a bank in Paraguay and leave it there for a period of time I think it was three years maybe five and after that you got it back sounds too good to be true, huh? Besides the five G's you'd had to pay a fee to the expediter. I think it was 2,500 bucks Anyway, you had to make a couple of personal trips down Meet with the immigration lawyer, etc. Etc. So the program was running and people started getting their official documents only to find out later

[08:43] one of the immigration lawyers or Facilitators it was a woman was bypassing certain steps because she knew people inside Paraguay's immigration department some of the steps weren't quite legal Well in the end she got busted convicted did jail time she might even be in jail right now and whether it was because of that bad PR or just Cloud over the whole operation all the other private immigration services sort of disappeared or moved on to other things But that was a long time ago before the Covid it stuff So in the years following that there was sort of a negative cloud floating over Paraguay as far as Gringotts and expats moving down Trying to get residency naturalization and a passport to that effect

[09:29] I know of a first-hand story a cautionary tale turns out two good friends of the expat file show a husband and wife team came to a couple of seminars Both Americans from California. She's Latina Americans and speaks a hundred percent perfect Spanish So believe me, you can't easily pull the wool over this lady's eyes or her husband They're both smart cookies very much go getters and entrepreneurial, too Anyway, they decided to make their plan be in Paraguay They hooked up with a Paraguayan lawyer hired an assistant started doing some real estate and land deals in the end It all completely blew up in their faces. They got scammed Let me just read a piece of an email. I got from them in 2022. He starts by saying Johnny We've been trying to recover from a scam artist partner. We had in Paraguay

[10:19] Everyone Johnny should avoid this person at all costs the legal authorities in Paraguay were useless Attorneys wanted more money to chase her down and get this even though she was arrested and her photos were in the news There's no police record of her arrest So he says we just reached out to some local entrepreneurs for their recovery methods and we'll see how that goes We weren't the only ones that got scammed then he says on the plus side We've decided to relocate from Paraguay to El Salvador We plan on opening a real estate brokerage firm in El Salvador and have met some great people to help us to that effect Got a contact with a local bank down there to offer one-of-a-kind home loans to the non-resident foreigners He says our real estate knowledge and experience paid off not bad for a gringo from California and his

[11:10] Guatemalan-born wife. Oh, I told you he was a gringo from California and his wife a US American Latina Born in Guatemala with her family moving to the states when she was very young But back to those con artists. He got involved with back in Paraguay He says it was lessons learned and then some He says Johnny was such a long con game that she played with me and a few other gringos, too But you move on it's lessons learned and then some oh and in another email About a year and a half after they started that whole business thing in Paraguay. He wrote me again He says Johnny Unfortunately, the whole Paraguay real estate biz went to piss and I lost a bunch of dollars on the deal the thing with dealing with the corrupt government is that he who gives sometimes takes and

[12:01] Sometimes he takes then he runs he says Johnny unfortunately not one permit or promise was followed through and In the end he says many parties. I was dealing with Disappeared since I'm pretty pissed off to say the least the only saving grace from this was that I was able to pick up some Bitcoins cheap now after that fiasco and losing about a year and a half maybe two years screwing around in Paraguay my friend and his latina wife moved to El Salvador as Mentioned in his earlier email where they have a number of profitable businesses now real estate business a hotel Etc, etc Now the reason why I'm going into all this is to give you fair warning about Paraguay because here's the thing most of us gringos and expats come down here with those rose colored glasses

[12:47] Almost none of us speak full in Spanish or have any real local connections That means right off the bat We're on the search for a good lawyer or at least an honest lawyer who will be faithful to you You're gonna be looking for a real estate guy or gal because you're gonna rant or buy You're gonna be looking for some good local contacts cleaning ladies maintenance guys Probably construction laborers plumbers, etc And of course getting your utilities hooked up and an internet plan So most gringos and expats probably 98% of us don't arrive with any particularly firm or loyal personal contact Yet most of us in time do okay. We do more than okay After all, you've got that gringo advantage going for us, right? Well, think of my friend and his wife. They're pretty much experts in the real estate business

[13:34] She's speaking perfect Spanish and being a Guatemalan by birth made it easy for them to come down here to Latin America and do Some real estate deals in Guatemala. I forgot to tell you that before they moved to Paraguay They did some successful real estate deals in Guatemala So they knew the Latin American ropes in pitfalls or so they thought and yet with all that knowledge When they moved to Paraguay, they got scammed. I'm telling you. I know these guys. They're smart. They plan ahead They know what they're doing yet. They still got scammed Like he said in his email the scammers played the long game and finally took their money and disappeared and in the deals They made none of the paperwork or documentation came through as promised So Jeremiah just a little warning and a heads up about Paraguay

[14:21] Unless of course, you've got some good solid contacts down their family friends and Latinos who hopefully know their way around the Paraguayan system On the other hand if you speak perfect Spanish or your wife for your kids do that still no guarantee However, if your wife happens to be Paraguayan now, that's a different story all together of course it depends on your ultimate purpose if you plan on just renting or buying a house and Retiring and sort of fading into the sunset if you live just a nice quiet uncomplicated life things just might work out fine However, if you plan on setting up a company or a business hiring employees Just remember what happened to my friend who's well above average and so is his wife on top of that She's Latina and knows Latin American waves, and she speaks Spanish better than any gringo. I know

[15:08] All right now an email from nurse Helene. She says Johnny I've been to Latin America about four or five times and three times to the gringo spots in Mexico if that counts But I think south of Mexico is where I'm gonna have my real plan be Anyway, she says I've noticed about half the people Riding motorcycles do not wear helmets. I Understand there are helmet laws in Latin America yet even see cops and military guys on motorcycles without helmets Am I missing something here? Helene says the problem is I work in a trauma unit in the hospital and almost every young paraplegic or quadriplegic I've ever taken care of received those life-threatening injuries on a motorcycle or a quad four-wheeler accident where the thing flipped I

[15:57] Repeat Johnny motorcycles and four-wheelers are the number one cause of paraplegic or quadriplegic events She says as for me I'm a bicycle rider and I never ride without a helmet I used to do it all the time until I started working in the ER She says I see skull fractures and brain injuries all the time from people not wearing a helmet While on a bike trail and hitting something like a rock then flying over the handlebars She says I've pestered my entire family about this as well She says I know that bike riders and motorcycle riders might not look cool when they're wearing a helmet But the risk of permanent injury or death is just not worth it Not to me anyway, and I work in the ER which naturally leads me to the question of bicycle riding in Latin America On my trips down there. I didn't see many Latinos riding bikes at all

[16:45] Seems to be most exclusively gringo tourists who rent them in tourist areas Funny thing too. I walked into a bike rental place in Cancun. I asked them about helmets They said yes, we have them but they're optional you can have one, but you got to pay rental on that, too Hmm, something's wrong with that picture Johnny. That's all for now Signed Helene long time listener halfway to my plan B. All right. Thanks for that Helene There's a good reason when you're down here in Latin America You see almost nobody riding a bike except in a nice safe park where there's no traffic No cars, no trucks. No chicken buses. No motorcycles I'm talking about Latinos riding bikes and believe me there are lots and lots of very nice public parks here in Latin America

[17:30] They're all over the place and most are perfectly safe and often you'll see cops that have been assigned to just walk through those parks Just to have a presence there That's where you're gonna see the most serious Latino bicycle riders almost always upscale Latino weekend warriors with nice bikes matching exercise and biking outfits Yes, and helmets too. However on the main streets the mean streets of Latin America You know where all the traffic is you rarely see a bike though You will see some hybrid hacked up bikes that have been turned into push carts and vending carts You know half bike half cart selling hot dogs tortillas platinos avocados Whatever, but those are not the bikes we're talking about and yes Helene I've seen in many tourist areas of Latin America places where they'll rent you a bike and rent you a helmet too now

[18:20] I've never done it in Latin America I've done it in Europe and I know it's more than wise to wear a helmet But I just can't see myself wearing a helmet that's been on a thousand other sweaty heads But that's just me now Helene You've mentioned you've been down to a number of Latin American cities and half the motorcyclists don't wear helmets Yet you found out by hook and crook Every Latin American country has a helmet law You mentioned military and police guys on motorcycles not wearing helmets. Yeah, that's true You see it all the time cops and military guys breaking the law, but no one does a damn thing about it No cops ever gonna pull you over for not wearing a helmet Yes, it is a love but it's just more like a lot of laws here in Latin America kind of a suggestion I mean look, you know how I rag on motorcyclists down here I wish there was a magic button I could press to flip all those guys on their backsides

[19:11] Well, just like up in the states There's also a law against being on your cell phone and driving your car or riding your motorcycle Well down here practically every motorcyclist it is either riding around with his cell phone in hand Talking and looking at his GPS and ways while driving or he's got an actual custom-made little cowl That's attached to the handlebars of his bike where the phone sits in the shade so the Sun doesn't reflect off it no glare Yep, I've noticed even motorcyclists whose bikes are falling apart just shitty pieces of crap They've got a little custom-made shaded space on the handlebars a little cradle where their phone sits out of the glare of the Sun So let's go back to that law that says you're not supposed to use your phone whilst driving here in Latin America

[19:56] Everyone and I mean everyone uses their phone while driving even me, but you know, I'm not using it while I'm riding down the road I'm not that cavalier when I'm stuck in a traffic jam or at a light That's way too long and that unfortunately happens all the time, especially in the big city Now sometimes when I'm in that position, I'll answer a text that needs a quick response But never whilst I'm actually driving rolling down the road. How about you? Oh and Helen, it's funny you mentioned that you work in the ER and you see all kinds of terrible accidents Leading to paraplegia and quadriplegia you mentioned their most exclusively drivers of motorcycles and four-wheelers who weren't wearing helmets Well, it's funny because I know a couple of emergency room docks here in Latin America And they tell me exactly the same thing visit an ER on any given day

[20:45] It'll be filled with damaged people who crash their motorcycles as for four wheelers only rich kids have them and they're all at the beach In fact every single motorcyclist I've ever asked has told me he's been in an accident or two sometimes a bad one Yet like you say half these guys don't wear helmets Well again, I think it boils down to the fact that most Latins don't care about tomorrow. They live in the moment They live for today They seem to have a sort of reset or erase button when it comes to tragedies in the moment They are affected to the core man Can they wail and cry at funerals but a week or two later that memory is mostly gone and forgotten and you know Latin America is sort of the land of tattoos I mean almost everyone has one or two or ten more like ten and of course Latina ladies are sporting of two

[21:34] The thing is over the years many times have been sitting down at a table with friends or a lady or two in a restaurant Bar or a coffee place? One of the natural things to ask a person. What does that tent to you have there stand for? It's there for a reason. They went through some time money and aggravation to have it done So I'm always open to asking what does that signify? What's that for? And man, I just can't tell you how many times a lady has told me it's in memory of my dead brother or my dead kid Or my dead cousin. I'll tell you Latina's especially the ones that have more than a couple of tattoos anyway almost always one of those names etched somewhere will be of a dead person in the family a Close family member like a kid a brother a cousin a nephew and it's almost always a fact that person died in a car

[22:24] Or motorcycle accident. That's the culture down here. Now. I don't know about up in the states where you live I'm not aware of the significance of people's tattoos though I understand some people like my sisters put little cutesy stars and hearts and flowers on their ankles as such But as far as having names of dead people in your family on your body I don't know. It seems a bit morbid for an American to do that. I'm thinking Latin Americans specialize in that especially Latin American young ladies concentrated mostly amongst the 20 and 30 something's So if any of you guys and gals out there have more information on the subject Do send me an email the expat files at gmail.com. By the way, here's something quite odd My girlfriend's got four adult brothers. None of them have any tattoos

[23:11] My girlfriend has no tattoos as well, of course She's educated with a master's degree in such one brothers and engineer ones a mathematician And it always seems to follow here in Latin America the higher level of education you've achieved The fewer number of tattoos, isn't that funny? Not always the case, of course, but generally true So I asked her early on in our relationship. How come you don't have any tattoos? I mean seems like everyone else does I was trying to be non-judgmental, but I guess the tone of voice gave it away She said at one time every young teenage girl here in Latin America thinks of getting a tattoo She said when I was young and stupid, I thought of getting one too Especially when my best girlfriend came home from vacation had a little tattoo on her shoulder and I said well

[23:56] So you thought about it, but didn't get one She said yeah I thought about it all the way up to the door of the tattoo parlor then I opened the door and looked in Wow, have you ever seen the inside of a Latin American tattoo parlor? Uh-huh. She said no way Staring at one from the outside is one thing but actually walking in and seeing how dirty and unhygienic those places are Maybe in the next world, but not this one Oh and another super popular thing for young ladies to do here in Latin America is to tattoo the names of their kids on Their body somewhere, you know in case you forget their names In fact, I actually said that to a Latino once I was sitting next to her at a coffee shop She had the names of her three kids tattooed on her arm. I said is that so you don't forget their names Well, that was supposed to be a joke, but man, she gave me the dirtiest look, you know early on here in Latin America

[24:45] I realized the Latino sense of humor is not at all like the gringo sense of humor their jokes are not at all Convoluted and sophisticated like many of ours are sure us gringos expats and Americans in general We'll laugh at some pretty crass crude humor, but Latino humor and jokes their comedians, etc It's nothing but crass lowbrow gross humor that you and I would never laugh at That's why early on I believed the woke thing would never catch on here in Latin America And it really hasn't except on college campus The general public here in Latin America is not at all ready for woke ism and never will be for one thing You'd have to completely eliminate all their jokes Which are based on cheating sex and people with physical and mental disabilities aka retards

[25:34] Yep, those are the four main themes of most Latin American humor First world style DEI and woke ism does not at all fit into that game plan So as crass and lowbrow as Latin American humor is I say don't change a thing It's a great defense shield against woke ism. So what's not to like about that? You may think it's juvenile, but it serves a purpose Alright before we sign off. I want to mention a little something that could only happen in Latin America I'm reading this from one of the large South American news services El Macudio It starts out Cuenca Ecuador's national police are investigating the first murder of 2025 the victim a 24 year old Adrian Quintero

[26:20] Seems to have been stoned to death It says deputy police commissioner Julio Navarro said the victim's body discovered Monday night in the recante barrio Showed signs of being struck by hundreds of blunt objects and was surrounded by a large number of stones Hmm you think? Then it says fire department first responders who arrived at the scene before police reported residents claimed a large number of people Cornered the man attacked him through stones at him then left when it appeared. He was dead reports of why he was killed are Unsubstantiated except to say residents claim that Quintero was a known thief who had robbed several tienes Seems like when enough is enough everyone's on board for a little vigilante justice a good old stoning

[27:10] Hey, that's what eventually happens when lard ass police slugs sit under dead asses and scroll through tiktok, man I'm telling you if I had more energy I'd put together a compilation video of the hundreds I mean hundreds of latin american policemen just sitting around scrolling through their phones Come down and see for yourself. Even the latin cops are addicted to tiktok South you've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b. Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com

[27:58] No spamos