#694 – Expat Life in Latin America: Challenges, Culture, and Survival

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 expat 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 You know for years. I've been asking expat Eddie to put his thoughts into words. He's quite the armchair philosopher I should say bar stool philosopher I guess what after what seven or eight years of doing this show he finally gave me a written piece and it's

[00:46] Got almost no typos too. Well, I guess he's got a better spell checker than I have so anyway It took me a long time But I coaxed him into actually writing something down and if it gets some good response He said he'll send me the occasional what you might call expat Eddie's take on Latin America So after seven years of asking that would be seven years of manana time notwithstanding Here goes what expat Eddie's calling a gringo Businessman's take on Latin America. Okay, it starts Johnny You're wrong about everything and you're right about everything too Then he says in Latin America in the business world anyway What's wrong up in the States and will never work will often work Stupendously here in Latin America and vice versa what proof? Well, here it is having lived a couple of decades now in Latin America

[01:33] I'm owning businesses that have taken off in some that have failed Like my failed attempt at the vintage car business you point out in a previous show So now I'm taking a good look around the streets of the third world that I know one loved so well And I get the feeling that anyone who could thrive in this environment is a credit to Charles Darwin And I'm not talking about us gringos and expats We have a huge leg up in so many ways not just money but in education spirit and drive too I'm talking about Simple survival of the fittest Darwinism and it doesn't matter if you're a believer or not All you have to do is come down here like me start a business and open your eyes and observe for a while You will certainly see things that are never repeated in books or in newscasts or in blogs

[02:21] So I'll repeat any Latino or Latina who could thrive in this environment is a credit to Charles Darwin These Latin folks friends are survivors and survival of the fittest ain't no theory here It's a fact and I'll bet you a Bitcoin fact. I'll bet you 10 bitcoins now since like Johnny I live far off the gringo tourist trail. I'll give you that perspective exclusively now as opposed to Johnny I came down here as a broke backpacker So when I wasn't crashing at Johnny's house I was staying at very low budget digs and when Johnny took me out and showed me the malls the gated garden communities and first world developments I thought all this and no tourists no gringos at first. I couldn't believe it. I thought this can't be right How could they have this stuff down here deep in the third world? It was a shock

[03:10] There were first world islands of prosperity everywhere occupied by a lot of tall light-skinned Latinos But almost no gringos to be found. These were places the wandering exploring Adventurous backpacker gringos like I was when I first got down here rarely got to experience We all know if you're a backpacker the kind of guy with a small budget Perpetually low on cash always looking to live on the cheap Then you're gonna end up doing what I did if you plan on staying a very long time or even permanently You'll naturally gravitate to the parts of Latin cities that are a bit dirtier grungier and scruffier than anything First world gringos and expats are used to unless they hailed from ghetto or white trash Society like I did when growing up back in the States

[03:56] Which points to another big social difference between gringos and Latinos normally as gringos will gladly admit if we come from a poor background You know proud of being a self-made man or woman up by the bootstraps and all that Whereas I've noticed many Latinos that come from a poor background will make up a much nicer past I see that on resumes and while doing interviews all the time, of course None of us would ever embellish a resume or a dating profile would we? So honestly a bit of scruff indigenous didn't bother me one bit fact that that's where you're coming from It feels sort of comforting Of course I'll admit that I rarely meet gringos and expats here in Latin America that come from the lower middle classes up in the States Somehow Latin America is not on the average white trash or welfare recipients travel itinerary

[04:44] Could it be the fault of the ghetto travel agents? I think not I was the first person in my family to have a passport. In fact, I think I'm still the only one that said I have the backpacker gene in my blood once a backpacker always a backpacker kind of Unfortunately, that means always that means always a cheapskate too used to hear that from my girlfriends up in the States all the time Used to hurt my feelings too though down here as long as you're not dating high society upscale Latin girls Your first world cheapness often affords third world luxury Especially when you're off the tourist trail and the first couple years I was down I hung with backpackers and did what backpackers are expected to do Now, you know when you end up at any kind of backpacker hostel You start bonding with people and hanging with them checking out the local action

[05:32] You meet some really great people that way all part of the backpacking experience, you know However, there's always one or two in every crowd that are those negative energy types complaining about everything borrowing stuff Even money doesn't matter if it's nickels and dimes. It still gets on your nerves because you know, you'll never get it back generous backpackers Yep, there are a few but there's some extreme skin flints too And the trick is how to dis include them in events without hurting anyone's feelings Luckily, I was never that guy least as far as I know now This might sound hypocritical and it probably is though in a way I sort of prefer backpackers to regular run-of-the-mill gringo travelers and tourists I know it's harsh, but I don't necessarily want them in or hanging out at my restaurants

[06:18] Wasn't it Groucho Marx who once said I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member Well how I feel about the backpacker thing is something like that. Yep, that's the hypocritical part The fact is I found out a long time ago in the restaurant business There is a price point at which you can dissuade almost any backpacker from stepping into your joint and below that price point Well, sometimes you just can't get rid of them Then man, you better have good plumbing because your poor restrooms will suffer though Never let it be said that I would not let a non-consumer use my facilities Meaning I refuse to put up a sign like so many Latin establishments do Saying something like this restroom is for clients only I tell you that's a Latin thing as gringos are seldom that harsh though as an establishment owner

[07:05] You never want to open the floodgates to that sort of thing or sooner or later You can have every backpacker and down-and-out gringo steal in your sugar packets napkins TP mustard and ketchup Bottles and taking sponge baths in your formerly nice clean first-world John and that truly is the hypocrite coming out in me because I Used to do that stuff myself. Yes. I remember the Latin backpacker circuit It's a law of nature that cheap backpacker joints are always in the scruffier parts of town That's what makes him so affordable. There are no backpacker hostels next to Clarion's and Hilton's, you know So soon enough you get used to garbage in the streets public urination Chicken buses whipping by blowing diesel smoke in your face Yep as a backpacker you get used to grunge and grime and get used to being grungy yourself pretty much all the time

[07:54] That's also a sign for backpackers that things are dirt cheap In fact soon as the litter and crud starts thinning out the neighborhood starts shaping up and you start seeing gringos Well, so then do the prices start escalating? So depending which country you're in in Latin America You got maybe 50 to 80 percent of latins living in those which might call unacceptable unsanitary conditions So you've got more than half the population totally accepting of water shortages power outages constant harassment and petty theft on chicken buses along with a severe shortage of public bathrooms and on and on even so with all Those daily lifestyle and negatives that we perceive Latinos have a surprisingly long average lifespan

[08:40] Weirdly enough as Latino average expected lifespan goes up And though you might not think so it is at the same time first world lifespans are leveling off and going down And you know It's been determined that latins live longer than expats do if you subtract deaths from violence and traffic accidents Of course, you don't see or read about that in the lame stream news Now in the media ever satisfactorily points out that Latin mortality numbers are skewed because of things like the high level of revenge Killings in the lower and poorer classes. Yes compared to the first world in Latin America They have a four times greater murder rate in extended families Yep within Latin families the males and females can really hold a grudge

[09:28] Yes, even at a few of my own restaurants I've experienced some of that a pissed-off ex-friend family member or lover waiting outside And when a certain employee walks out he gets his comeuppance or worse You've heard about that so-called fiery Latin temper Well, I've seen it in action many times and no one in the first world media is talking about how latins are Notoriously terrible drivers and have five times the traffic accidents and traffic deaths compared to the driving population Up in the states. So for example, if you check a latin country on Wikipedia They'll give the population the elevation the GDP blah blah blah along with the average life expectancy And so for example when you see it's sixty six or sixty eight years for the average latin male

[10:15] And you see that up in the US we've got them beat by ten years. You think hey, am I glad I live in the good All us of a well if you subtract the revenge killings violence within extended families The traffic deaths the lynchings and the occasional genocidal civil wars Latin life expectancy is in fact beyond that of most first world countries Yet this unmentioned longevity is hardly the result of cradle to grave health care In fact, it correlates more to lack of health care I've seen it myself with my own latin workers. They won't bother to go to the doctor unless they're half dead I can't blame him I wouldn't want to walk through the door of a national health care sewer hole hospital either But get this my employees have private health care. Yep by giving that small benefit. It's very inexpensive here

[11:03] In fact, I've got most of my employees on a group plan costs me less than twelve dollars a month per person Even so my workers who have private insurance won't bother to go to the doctor unless they're half dead doesn't matter that they'd be going to a nice clean doctor's office or Hospital and miracle of miracles get treated right away in the social economic class of my Latin workers my Latin help There's a very strong tradition of home healing and toughing it out minor injuries like burns and cuts and scrapes even Not so minor ones like concussions and fever even broken toes and fingers are best treated at home There's always someone in the family usually a grandma or an aunt that is dedicated to that kind of stuff Usually is she she's said to have a don for healing

[11:51] That's do n and Don do n like Don Johnny or Don Carleoni also means gift And don't forget indigenous people have some of their own potions and stuff that they mix up and you can't discount that it works And for health problems that granny or aunt Rosie can't take care of there's always the local pharmacist So unlike over sanitized over medicated gringos and expats Latins don't get pumped full of antibiotics at the first sign of a sniffle They don't have a nurse made government or even an FDA Protecting them from the cruel and evil world out there So even though in the last 50 or so years natural selection has been sidelined up in the states Latino doctors will tell you it's alive and well down here survival of fittest

[12:37] That's the legacy of Latins living here today, man They are tough especially the ones that have a lot of indigenous blood and no expat has been living down here a while We'll argue with that compared with the average coddled first world weenie The average Latin American coffee picker is a genetic Superman However, as for the upper three to five percent of Latinos that can afford to eat at high-end restaurants and sushi joints Since they can afford bad first world habits and they're passing them on to their kids with a vengeance I'm certain for them the genetic Superman label does not apply meaning in a no holds barred street fight Between a tall white skinned upscale Latin and a poor short dark coffee picker I'll take the little guy every time by the way those kind of people are my best workers

[13:27] I have interviewed hired and fired plenty of young latin kids who went to private schools and Most of them think because they speak almost perfect English and have an upper-class Spanish last name They're a natural shoe in for a job at an upper-class gringle restaurant when I first started out in this biz I thought so too man was I wrong I'd rather take a smart young latin kid from Middle or lower middle-class family and train him up then beat the bad habits out of an entitled rich kid who won't even Wipe a counter down or bend over to pick up a gum wrapper on the floor Then the letter stops abruptly there. That's it. Nothing else So I guess there you have it ex had Eddie's most recent take on Latin life and what it's like to be a Latin boss

[14:13] Yeah, it's an actual letter on physical paper Not an email little monged up to has got some wasabi or sushi sauce on it Which leads us to this kind of bittersweet boots on the ground story pay attention to this one It's more than solid proof that you really need a Latin lawyer that you bonded with enough so that you can call them up in An instant and he'll answer or at least quickly reply to your text messages You don't want to do it. So many cheap ass gringos and expats do they skip from lawyer to lawyer from circumstance to circumstance Chasing down the cheapest fee. That's no way to get your lawyer to answer a frantic phone call on a Friday or Saturday night Let me tell you so last Friday I attended a little get-together at a restaurant

[15:00] With a few expat gringos living down here for a couple years now and a few Latino and Latina friends Then a couple hours after the party was over got a phone call from one of the expat gringos He's just been in a car accident And I said how bad is it and whose fault was it? He said his car and the taxi he hit were pretty screwed up and the people in the taxi complaining They were hurt a bit But who knows then he said it was his fault and you know What I should have said to him was don't say anything Don't tell anyone it was your fault Wait for your lawyer or insurance rep to show up and let them do the talking play dumb. I'm a gringo Sorry, I know speak Oh Spanish. Well, you know, in fact the little plastic card I got from my own Latin insurance company says just that never admit. It's your fault. I'm not kidding

[15:49] I think I'll give you a screenshot of that when I put this up on YouTube. Anyway regarding my friend the gringo He's a very smart guy who's been down here a couple of years now Continuously, and he doesn't speak much Spanish at all You can lead a horse to water and all that But that didn't really matter because his lawyer was on the way now Let me set this up a little bit about a year ago. I was talking to this fella nice guy Very smart gringo except no matter how smart we are. Sometimes we procrastinate we screw up. We put things off Anyway about a year ago. He said to me Johnny Where do you get your car insurance? You think you could set me up with the guy you get it from and I said, you know We'll go down there someday. I don't use a guy We go straight to the main insurance headquarters cutting out the broker there by saving at least 50 percent

[16:34] He has a nice car, but it's a couple years old. So I'd only recommend liability third-party coverage It would cost maybe 150 to 200 bucks a year including full triple-a coverage Anyway, that conversation happened about a year ago now back to friday We were sitting around at this restaurant. It was either he or I that brought up the insurance thing again I said, yeah, we never got around to getting it. Did we he said? Yeah, let's do it soon By the way, I should add here that his us driver's license has expired And though he is a legal resident in his new latin american country Which enables him to go down to the license bureau and get himself a legal latin driver's license again Somehow that didn't happen. He never got around to it or whatever So that's a setup but smart expat gringo driving a nice car

[17:21] Expired u.s driver's license. No insurance hits a taxi cabin really wipes it out Totals it and the passengers though. They don't look like they're in pain raggedy say they're hurt I know he doesn't speak enough english to maneuver his way through it and even if he could It's a setup for a very bad situation. So here's how it went down Let me preface this by saying that throughout latin america each country generally has three different types of police They've got the city transit police the ones that don't carry guns They direct traffic and give out tickets for parking and moving violations And they also have a little unit that puts on that dreaded denver boot down here. They're called sepos So these guys are kind of the cops light Since they don't carry guns and are not crime busters

[18:08] They're kind of just useless traffic mannequins that actually make things worse when they're directing traffic Then you've got what they call the national police. They're usually in dark blue or black uniforms They're the ones that are supposed to be investigating the big crimes the narcos the assaults the murders, etc They carry guns are a little bit more business like and serious than the transit cops They're the ones if you phone up the station or call 911 will show up at your house an hour or two late Or maybe not at all in mexico. They're also the kings of the extortion game, but south of mexico There's just kind of large loafers who just rather sit in their cars and do nothing by the way Just the other day. I was talking to a latin guy No told me his neighbor got broken into and strangely enough. It was in one of those protected gated guarded communities

[18:53] It was the maid and the maintenance guy who were in on it Yep, this time you could say the old cliche is true. The butler did it kind of anyway He told me it took a couple hours But the national police finally did show up now get this the cops said they would patrol and search the neighborhood for a couple hours Provided the owner the guy who got robbed would fork out five bucks for gas. I'm not kidding Only in latin america, huh? Oh and on the subject of the safety of being in a gated guarded community Well in those protected spaces, it seems all the robberies are inside jobs So it's these idiot upscale latins who just have to have their bodyguards to show everybody how important they are They're the ones that are at the most risk of getting robbed and to make things worse I know for a fact that a lot of latins are on the edge financially

[19:40] They're checked up to the limit on their credit cards. There are a couple of house and car payments late I know you're thinking how do I know that for sure? Well, I happen to know a couple of expat gringo school teachers who teach at those nice expensive helicopter schools Well expensive for latins anyway k through 12 might run you around 100 or two a month at the very high end 300 and this handful of expat gringo teachers who are at different Helicopter schools have all told me That a good quarter to a third of the parents of these kids are behind on paying those monthly payments And these are families with maids and maintenance guys and bodyguards and cooks and beach houses These are parents and kids who brag about their yearly trips to my jammy shopping and to disney world

[20:27] Yet many of these pretentious jerks are months behind on basic payments Where's yet? They're chronically behind in paying their help including the bodyguards now if that was a pompous upscale latin I definitely want to pay my bodyguards on time. Wouldn't you you want to have them talking behind your back being all pissed off at you? I don't think so because they know everything about you your every move and where all your valuables are Who better than to pull off an inside job? But I digress we were talking about the different kinds of cops in latin america, right? Well, we're talking about the transit cops and then there's the national police and then there's another group of cops Sometimes you see way out in the long stretches in the boonies on the highways The latin equivalent of the highway patrol and you can generally tell them by their khaki

[21:13] Short sleeve uniforms and get this pith helmets or sometimes cowboy or texas ranger style hats And these guys how tough are they? Well, not to worry. They're usually asleep at the job. In fact in my 27 plus years down here i've never once been stopped or pulled over by one of these guys except you guessed it In mexico, but as for the rest of latin america, I see him alongside the road occasionally Hanging out sucking down a coke reading the paper just slumped over asleep in their cars And if it wasn't for the multiple orange cones They occasionally set up as an obstacle course for you to kind of weave through You wouldn't even know these guys existed but they do and maybe someday they'll get up off their asses and actually do something On second thought maybe it's better

[21:59] They don't but back to my gringle friend who hit that taxi by the way He came down to one of my very early expat insider seminars and decided to stay here ever since that happens sometimes Anyway, the accident was in a fairly high-end section of a big latin city on a low traffic day So first as he tells it a couple of transit cops showed up next A couple of the more serious national cops showed up. All right now He's got two sets of cops to deal with then The firemen showed up not that there was a fire or anything, but hell the more the merrier, right? So as it turns out, he said the cops were rather nice one actually spoke some english My guess is that he was living illegally up in the states and got picked up and deported In fact, if you listen to one of my earlier shows I talk about such an incident a cop that actually told me

[22:48] That's a plus on your resume and an actual fast track to the police department He admitted that's how he got to be a cop Oh which reminds me and i'll get back to the main story in a second I once had a maintenance guy many years ago good maintenance guy But one day he stole my bicycle and just never came back you long-time listeners might remember me telling that story I went with a lawyer and recovered that bite because I knew exactly where he lived or at least the neighborhood And that was years ago. And guess what about two weeks ago. I saw the guy first time in years You're not gonna believe this and I couldn't at first either. He's now a transit cop Hmm. I wonder if he put bicycle thief down on his resume But back to the accident, how did it turn out? Well, the lawyer showed up paid the national cops 30 or 40 bucks to go away

[23:37] And they did as easy as that though I don't think a gringo could have pulled that off himself unless his spanish was pretty good took a lawyer to do that Next they sat around discussing the whole thing with the transit cops turns out they were so nice about it They didn't even want a bribe They just wanted to make sure that the taxi driver whose car had been pretty much totaled Was not going to get stiffed and the gringo was good for replacing or fixing the car and the fireman Well, they were just there for the ride and took off later Which left our gringo and lawyer to work out a deal with the taxi driver and the people inside who claimed they were a bit hurt Now that part of the process was not cheap because the car really was total So our gringo friend was absolutely 100 percent saved by his latin lawyer In fact, i'd hate to think of what had happened had he not had a lawyer at his instant disposal like that

[24:26] It's also a very good case study pointing out why you really need to get liability insurance That's not to say you wouldn't have needed a lawyer However, just one call and within 10 or 15 minutes the insurance guys would be there with their van and they would settle the whole thing Plus they would have taken care of the people who were supposedly hurt in the other car So there's another boots on the ground story of being saved at least from court and possible jail time by your latin lawyer So make getting a latin lawyer your top priority in that plan b You know that in my upcoming january 2018 expat insider seminar We have our seminar latin lawyer with us at all times That means you have all the time in the world to pick his brains about any kind of legal issue Now where are you ever going to get a chance like that? By the way, we spend a lot of time talking about insurance

[25:15] Including health care and car insurance and you know, there's no other seminar I've been told this over and over again that really digs deep into the practical side of what green gringos and expats really need In fact, if you're trying to get the facts on the internet It's all hit and miss people send me emails all the time giving me links to blogs and lawyers, etc Demonstrating that people are either giving wrong or out of date information, you know, it's changing all the time So just know that if you attend my january seminar after that you'll be in very good hands and you'll have all the necessary Context and info to get you off to a running start. Hey when I first got done, I made all the mistakes in the world I wish there was some kind of blog group or seminar or something. I could have learned from but there was nothing There wasn't even any internet expat sites yet. We're talking about the late 1980s

[26:04] When internet access was still on dial-up modems, remember that that's how my expat insider seminars developed The whole point being to give you a big leg up and get you on the fast track We've got six jam-packed days and nights drinking from the fire hose Plus we've got the early bird discounts going right now That's a $500 savings off the regular price for singles and couples Oh and right off the bat couples or people sharing double occupancy automatically save a thousand bucks You can read about that and suss out the details by going to www.thenewexpat.com and clicking on the seminar link Yep, time's a-wasting and if you don't think the reset button is going to get pushed soon Well, good luck to you when you try dialing 911 Come on. You don't want to be without a plan b an insurance policy. Look at those hurricane victims

[26:56] Go ahead. Ask someone who's had their power out for more than two or three days In the meantime, if you just can't make it down to the seminar to sign up for my expat essentials course It's the next best thing and it'll get you far far along on your own plan b Check out my free video that tells all about it at expat plan b.com Oh and by the way, i've made it much easier and quicker to download my phone consultation form Have a look at it. Even if you're not planning on doing a phone call with me You'll also find that at thenewexpat.com. Check it out. It's guaranteed to get your wheels turning download it. It's free south of the border This is the expat files living in latin america If you want me to help you out with your own plan b just schedule a one-on-one consult

[27:42] Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to learn how to move forward with your own plan b from right up there in the states Go to www.expatplanb.com and check out my three videos. See ya nos vemos