#464 – The Expat Files: Spain, Safety, and Cultural Nuances

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 Okay, then let's start with a little email. This one's from Scott He says Johnny hope all is well with you enjoying the show have some questions about your recent Spain trip first Did you personally change your own? Pronunciations and verb connotations to the Spanish version from the Latin version second. What do you think about Spain for expats?

[00:53] I'm seriously considering it for a while as a base to get to know Europe I know it'll cost more than Latin America, but later I will be heading to Latin America all the best Scott Well, I think it was on last week's show. I mentioned a bit about Spain What I didn't mention was that Spain has its own dialects to just like Latin America Just like United States and Canada for that matter when you really really know language You can generally tell the part of the country that a person comes from That's why every born-and-bred American can generally pick out a guy from Texas, New York or Joysey So if you happen to be in Barcelona, Spain, for example, like I was last week They do have a particular dialect even a particular way with words as you see them written now

[01:39] No matter how many dialects they have in Spain or accents Whatever you want to call them or even separate languages like for example Basque The people in Spain consider their version of Spanish the high so-called superior version That is the correct and proper version and everyone else's version of Spanish. That means all of Latin America They consider common lower bastardized versions of Spanish and you know, it's really the same thing with England For example, they consider their version of English the high version the proper version and it is compared to the rustic folks That still live in the colonies that is even though in England They have a lot of crazy dialects to like for example, Cockney which higher-class people in London For example from Mayfair consider low-class even so the English consider Cockney to be far superior than American English

[02:27] And you can't really blame the Brits after all it is the mother country, right? home of Shakespeare Shaw and even Ian Fleming and funny enough last week when I was in Spain and of course I spoke my version of Spanish to them the local Spaniards would ask me Where are you from and I'd say yes, and they'd always say yeah Well, you look like a gringo, but you sound like you're from Colombia now My Spanish is okay But my conjugations and my past presence and futures etc are not as fluent as a native speaker and in no way Could I instantly convert my Latin American Spanish to the proper kind of nasally upper-class Spanish? They speak in let's say Barcelona. I'm just not that lingually adaptive I freely admit I'm a kind of a language blockhead

[03:14] And if you remember it took me a couple of years to get together enough kitchen Spanish to figure out what my cleaning lady was Talking about but with time you do pick that stuff up I just plaid along the best I can in my Latin American Spanish, which I guess sounds a lot like Colombian Spanish to them Anyway, I've heard native speakers say that a hundred times now. That's totally fine with me Just don't say my Spanish sounds like Mexican Spanish, please Why because I found out while in Spain real European Spaniards just gag at the thought of cantinas men with glittery spangly outfits and gigantic sombreros and Seemingly drunk and out of tune mariachi bands. They disdain all those so-called low-class Mexican traditions

[04:00] Spaniards look at those pot-bellied Mexican guys in spangly outfits With dingle balls on their gigantic sombreros as a big joke a bunch of bozos in fact in Spain I noticed a very conspicuous absence of Mexican restaurants I saw it not one single Taco Bell nor Taco Bell commercial on TV Oh, they've got their McDonald's and their Kentucky Fried Chicken's. All right, but Mexican restaurants. Nope Oh and speaking of Mexico people still send me the occasional email Justifying their lifestyle or a little piece of turf. They're living on in Mexico They tell me they've found their little safe enclave. That's far enough away They say from narcos crime and murder and that's all good and well and fine That's what we're all looking for right except, you know, we're talking about Mexico

[04:48] That means you don't want to leave your little patch of tranquility too often because except for parts of the Yucatan and Those well-guarded first world expensive exclusive neighborhoods that are pretty much a staple for the wealthy in all Latin cities And of course the usual tourist spots like Cancun and Playa del Carmen The fact is if you're gonna live in Mexico, it really is the Wild West and you better have a gun But wait a minute guns for the average man are outlawed in Mexico That makes sense one of the murder capitals of the world and they don't let the public have guns I'm serious now I know news stories about killings in Mexico are becoming old hat and you're probably callous to them But the latest one that took place last week is kind of a shocker 43 people killed in a three-hour shootout right outside of Guadalajara

[05:39] Very near a popular gringo tourist destination way too close for comfort So all you folks who are stuck in Mexico because you've got an investment there or whatever Please stop trying to convince me that your little enclave is totally okay I'm sure it is and of course if you've got first world though You can live in a well protected first world gated community, too But what happens once you wander outside the gates of the neighborhood? Come on be realistic How safe do you really feel now if I was invested in Mexico and I had a condo in a high-rise tower or whatever I'd be trying to rationalize why I live there, too The thing is even if you found your little peaceful enclave You know that soon enough when the next big first world crisis comes and it sweeps down to Latin America things are gonna get much worse

[06:26] Everywhere so you might be able to poke your head out the window and even take a walk down to the nearest big Mexican mall But a year from now, I wouldn't bet on it now Scott in his email also asked about living for a while in Spain Learning the culture and the language etc and then moving to Latin America. Well, you know, I'm all for that But you're gonna have to have first world dough now Scott of course mentioned it is more expensive than Latin America Well, I'll tell you it's not just more expensive than Latin America It's a hell of a lot more expensive than Latin America For example in any big Latin city like Madrid or Barcelona If you take a trip on the underground the metro the train locally You're gonna pay about a buck 25 to a buck 50 for a one-way trip And that's if you buy an economy pass, which I think is called a T10 pass pay 10 euros for that

[07:14] Which is like 13 bucks and you get 10 trips Otherwise if you just take an individual trip on the metro or a bus or a train locally You'll pay about two bucks for a one-way trip now down in Latin America Whether it's a big city or a small city whether you're taking the metro or a municipal bus For example, like in Rio or Medellin or Panama City or Sao Paulo You're gonna pay about 20 to 25 cents for a one-way trip locally Which is about a sixth to an eighth of the cost of traveling around in a big city in Spain And as far as eating out in Latin America, you could easily get by on 25 bucks a day Whereas in Spain for the same kind of meals you're gonna pay four times as much or more And it's true with all that unemployment in Spain now 30% of the adult population and the economy and the crapper

[07:59] Real estate prices and rentals have come way down For example, I checked a lot of listings and you can get a nice apartment for around 600 to maybe a thousand bucks a month But as it turns out that's still way too expensive for the locals Even though Spain's considered first world and therefore should have first world salaries In talking to a few cab drivers and cooks and waitresses, etc. The common people They tell me now that the average unskilled person makes around 800 to a thousand euros a month That's around a thousand to maybe $1,300 a month u.s. Which means the average Spaniard cannot afford to buy a house or a car That's why right now some of the Spanish TV reality shows Focus on young adult Spanish men and Spanish women sharing rent and apartment space

[08:46] For example, there's one show about three 20-something Spanish guys There are trials and tribulations renting an apartment and there's another sort of companion show showing three 20-something Spanish women sharing apartment space and their trials and tribulations and those two shows as it turns out have super high ratings because So many young Spaniards are in that position as it turns out unlike young adults in Latin America who live with the folks Forever even when they're married young adults in first-world Spain are like young adults in the states They want to get the hell out of the house by the time they're 20 most of them Anyway, though, I know a lot of them get stuck at home Maybe forever mostly because the employment prospects are so dismal

[09:32] So for gringos and expats if you're going to Spain you can get in a house or apartment very inexpensively You'll pay probably half of what it was two years ago, but almost everything else is first-world expensive Oh and one more comment about the transportation thing the trains the buses the undergrounds in the metros are in Much much better. In fact, sometimes infinitely better condition than their counterparts in Latin America So if for example, you're riding a bus in Managua Nicaragua I bet after looking at the condition of the seats, you really don't want to sit down In fact, you probably want to avoid touching too many things, too So in Latin America might be 25 cents a ride, but I assure you there'll be no pleasure in it Now as expat Eddie always says he'd ride the chicken bus if it was an emergency

[10:20] but he wouldn't sit on a seat if he was wearing your pants sort of a funny statement coming from expat Eddie a Guy who rode the chicken bus practically every day the first few years He was down here which begs the question could fame and fortune have tainted expat Eddie, too Well, maybe a teensy bit but not much He still buys those cheap stinky ass Belmont cigarettes for a buck and a half a pack and speaking of expat Eddie Here's another crazy chapter out of his life recently I was at expat Eddie's house and his little gated community in San Salvador We were just catching up on things because I haven't seen him in about six months now You longtime listeners probably know the last time I mentioned an expat Eddie story I was on the outs with his girlfriend because I made a few negative comments to Eddie about her SUV

[11:09] And how ridiculous it is to have one of those things down here In fact, she can barely maneuver and park the big ass thing But no matter for latin's it's all about the show and it's even better if you have a driver So naturally he ended up hiring one because she can't even back the thing up much less parallel park That would have been impossible for her and I know Eddie paid for one of those private driving schools for her And she went down to the driver's testing station and past and all that but as it turns out She readily admits even the driver school never made her parallel park and at the driver's testing station They don't even make you a parallel park some tests, huh? Though it should be mentioned all girls in short dresses pass their driver's test down here Why because all the tests are given by men

[11:55] Surprise surprise, huh? This is latin america When by the way if you go way back in my past shows You'll hear me talk about the fact that you can buy your driver's license down here without any kind of test at all In fact nearly all driver's schools promise you that they guarantee you a license when you finish You don't even have to go down to the driver's testing station When your lessons are finished magically a driver's license appears And here we all thought latin americans were inefficient and on mañana time Now note in countries that are loaded with gringo tourism like Panama and Costa Rica Governments have tightened up on those driver's license requirements Because they know gringos have no trouble forking out the dough for a license Latin governments know that gringos are known for baying the law and following orders so

[12:41] They almost always get their licenses the legal way Which turns out to be a nice big cash cow for places like Costa Rica Where they charge gringos extra for the privilege So anyway sitting in expedites living room facing down his fiancee who six months ago Wanted nothing to do with me Luckily it seems to be a common theme that latins don't hold grudges long Isn't that nice? Which is why and i've seen this for myself Latin guys can cheat on their wives and girlfriends Get caught then a couple of days later they're lovey-dovey and having a date at a restaurant And you know the first couple times you see that happen it's kind of baffling But this is macho latin america you know Which dovetails nicely into this expat eddie story As we were sitting around in eddie's living room

[13:28] Eddie's girlfriend who was once again genuinely nice to me Asked me if i was still looking for a new cleaning lady Or if i knew any other gringos who needed some domestic help To which i said no i don't need one right now But i often run into gringos who do Then she called out the name i think it was ingrid And a little girl in a maid's outfit ran out from the kitchen I mean she was little maybe 80 pounds and 14 years old Now note that down here latin america it's not unusual For 14 13 even 12 year old kids to be working Actually somewhat legally Of course this is latin america so in the big cities especially There are tons of kids on the streets washing car windshields for pennies There's kid fire breathers human statues

[14:14] Kid candy and pirated cd sellers too Mostly on big street corners and crummy sections of town Yeah sure there are child labor laws and kids are supposed to go to school But there's really no such thing as a truant officer down here so go figure Like i said latin countries have all the first world laws but none of the enforcement Anyway the thing is you can under certain circumstances hire underage kids Though i don't recommend it Even with a 14 year old kid if you could get her parents to sign a piece of paper Saying they give her permission to work Well she can work and it's legal Anyway in this case i said teddy's girlfriend isn't she your maid She said not quite her mother's are made She's been our maid a long time and that's her daughter We don't really need two maids in the house

[15:00] So she's just working here for a while till we can find her something else She's a good girl but the problem is she doesn't want to go to school She keeps running away she wants to work And eddie never hires young girls like that to work at his restaurants Because sometimes they get out at two in the morning And being that his restaurants are in the big city for young girls at night like that It's a problem So then i said well what's the story What she'd do it in your house if you really don't need her Then eddie's girlfriend said well it's a long story The girl's dad her maid's husband He's kind of an abusive weekend alcoholic And well he occasionally beats on his wife and his daughter So just recently the mother and daughter left the house And now they're living in the maids quarters here Of course that's what the maids quarters is for

[15:47] But it's only for the maid one person Then i got the whole story out of her A sad little tale that's pretty common down here Now don't laugh or get shocked when you hear this But it's 100% true And not at all out of the ordinary for the lower middle classes in latin america Who make up about 50% sometimes more of the half a billion people living down here Now as you probably well know latin's are very superstitious And the lower class least educated people are the most superstitious Anyways it turns out her mother eddie's maid Knew that her husband who she'd been married to for 20 some years Was cheating on her and she knew this for a long long time Especially when he came home drunk smelling of perfume and worse And when she'd confront him with it he'd just get abusive

[16:34] And smack her around So she just did what any self-respecting lower class latin american woman would do in that situation She went to the local neighborhood witch They're called brujas down here Bruja As it turns out basically every middle and lower middle class latin neighborhood Has one of these brujas kind of a fortune teller Who can also cast little spells and mix potions Totally ludicrous I know but it is what it is Down here you see there's always been a weird mix of christianity and paganism Including a lot of indigenous rituals that go way back before columbus So anyway the cleaning lady went to the local bruja who charges like 10 bucks to hear your case So she forked over 10 bucks And according to the cleaning lady the bruja knew the whole story before she even opened her mouth

[17:23] She said I know your husband's cheating on you And you want to know how to cure him of that Yeah right big shocking revelation a latin american guy cheats on his wife Then the witch said I'll tell you something else He's not just cheating on you with one woman he's cheating with four And then after some chanting and some incense burning and some mixing of herbs and spices The bruja went into her kitchen and came out with a little plastic ziplock bag Yep a ziplock bag I guess that's part of the modern day witch kit And in that bag get this she had a brown egg And a stick that was about a half a foot long and carved crudely in the shape of a penis And here's what the bruja told her to do

[18:08] She said take a pair of your red panties they have to be red Wrap them in this little wooden penis Then stuff it under your bed mattress on the side your husband sleeps So what was that all about? It was supposed to take all the desire her husband had and concentrate it on her his wife So that now he would only have passion for her I mean come on you can't make this stuff up right? Then she took an egg out of the ziplock bag and said Next time he comes home drunk and he falls asleep in bed You take this egg slowly and gently rub it all around his body But don't break it that would negate the whole spell And what was that for? Well the bruja said the egg would suck up all the bad sexual energy and desire out of this guy

[18:58] And what remained would be the good passion that he had for his wife Then she said the most important part of the whole procedure When she was done rubbing the egg all over him She was to quickly within the hour run to the nearest river or body of water And throw the egg as far as she could Which was supposed to disperse all that bad energy that was now concentrated in the egg Now as it turned out she succeeded in placing the underwear and little stick On his side of the bed under the mattress Then the next time he came home drunk she did the egg thing And unfortunately for her he wasn't that drunk and he grabbed her And the egg broke all over him Then according to her he started wailing on her again And made her fess up to what she was doing And when she explained about the bruja he just blew his top and really laid into her

[19:49] Then a couple of days later when everything calmed down She went back to the bruja and told her the story Only this time she brought her 14 year old daughter with her And the bruja seeing the 14 year old daughter said to the lady You'd better get your daughter out of the house as soon as you can Because he's doing bad things to her too Now the other part of the story is that she's got three other kids A boy and two other daughters in their 20s And they've been out of the house for quite a while And by the way the bruja said her drunken abusive husband Was also playing around with the other two daughters when they were in the house too Okay now hearing that much of the story I said to Eddie's girlfriend You really believe all that what the bruja said? Then Eddie's girlfriend nodded and said Her maid knew all of that was going on

[20:34] She knew her husband would get drunk and occasionally creep into the room of her other daughters That's why she said they got married so young Went at 15 and went at 16 to get out of the house and away from the old man But the story's not finished yet Turns out the bruja told the cleaning lady that there is one way to cure her husband of all that She said he'd have to call a family meeting of all his brothers and sisters And his mother and father And he'd have to go around the room one by one Hold the hands of each of his family members Confessing and naming each of the four ladies that he was screwing around with And that he had abused his own daughters In other words ask every single member of his family's personal forgiveness Then the bruja said all the bad vibes and spirits will have drained out of him

[21:21] And after that he could begin as a new man That said the cleaning lady had a powwow with her husband And said she was going to leave him and take her 14 year old daughter Unless he agreed to spill it all in front of his family members Which was the bruja's prescription for success But you see it's such a macho society down here No man would ever submit himself to that kind of embarrassment and ridicule in front of his family So he just laughed at her and told her she was nuts Then she said when you come home tonight we'll be gone Then he laughed and said yeah you've said that before But you've got no money and nowhere to go And that was the date She moved permanently into the maid's quarters at Eddie's house And Eddie said the guy came over knocking on the door a couple times looking for her

[22:09] At first he was very pissed off Then a few days later he came back with his tail between his legs And still his wife wouldn't talk to him unless Eddie's girlfriend was present Just in case you know Then a couple days later he came and was crying begging her to come back Probably because he needed his house cleaned and he needed some food on the table she said She repeated the only way she'd go back is if he had that family confessional powwow In the meantime she wants to get her 14 year old daughter far away from this guy Let me just say that I don't know what you're thinking But I'd never take a 14 year old girl into my house as a cleaning lady And you shouldn't either so don't get any ideas However I got to tell you it's very common down here for middle class

[22:54] And upper middle class latin families to have very young girls 12 13 and 14 As their live in maids and these girls are always uneducated indigenous types Many can't read and write or barely can They're mostly from way out in the boonies and sort of like indentured slaves In fact a couple of times I visited the family of a high level military guy His wife and his kids at home and all that And he had two of these young 14 year old girls as his maids When I asked him where they came from he said when he was stationed at an airfield Way out in the boonies all the officers had little houses on the base And they had their cleaning ladies of course And a lot of the mothers would offer up their daughters To work at these guys houses in the city As cleaning ladies of course nothing more

[23:41] He said that's the best way to get a very loyal hardworking cleaning lady or maid Getting them really young pretty much off the farm That way they've got no bad habits Now in no way am I recommending this for gringos and expats I'm just giving you a little taste of latin sociology and the rigidness of the class system And then you might ask a girl in a situation like that how much does she get paid Well of course she gets room and board and about three bucks a day From what I can see they're glad to get it Because there's just no work at all way out in the boonies So anyway I really think it's good to know about these things Know how society works down here When by the way about the bruja in every neighborhood Now she doesn't look like a witch She just looks like a regular workaday lady living in a run-down neighborhood In a tiny house with a laminate roof

[24:27] Just like everybody else in the neighborhood And she's got kids and sometimes a husband And when you ask latin folks how'd she get that job They'll say she was born with a don D-O-N Which in spanish means a kind of mystical gift So generally mothers pass that kind of thing down to daughters And to latins there's nothing really strange or unusual about it Now the most common reason latin women go to brujas And it's almost always latin women Number one to regain a love interest that's strayed Number two to fix money problems And number three to cure physical ills the doctors can't The question is are these brujas effective Well it beats obama care So then you might ask and he's heavily catholic in christian countries Don't the priests and pastors raise a fuss about that

[25:15] Well sure they know about the popularity of the neighborhood brujas They just kind of tolerate it Very weird huh Okay now before we finish up today I'd like to give you a little update on some behind the scenes stuff Now you may or may not know I launched what's called the flag wisdom flag anomics course Last week and it went like gangbusters I wanted to keep the class really small So I took it offline off sale on tuesday Now a lot of people didn't believe we were going to close it out so fast So we had a lot of people trying to get in on it at the last minute Sorry you didn't get in But we did say it was going to be for a very very limited time only Now that said we've had some issues with a few of the credit cards that never went through In fact some people actually purchased the course in two places

[26:02] I guess they really wanted to make sure they got a seat So with all that and a couple of small mixups We have a few more places available to make it fair We'll be opening the doors again on monday to give people who missed out on it And those who had credit cards grew up one more chance Now my first flag anomics class with live q&a starts on friday june 5th So we need to get everyone up to speed before this class on friday So if all goes as planned we'll be doing a webinar on monday at 12 noon eastern To answer any further questions about flag wisdom flag anomics We'll open up the doors one last time right afterward So watch for an email shortly with all the details And by the way only those listeners who signed up at the expat wisdom website You're the only ones who will get the email and you're the only ones who know about the course

[26:51] It's my very own step-by-step plan on how to internationalize yourself Make yourself big brother bulletproof How to become a low-profile expat just like me And of course you know nothing about this event if you haven't signed up at expatwisdom.com As of today that's the only way you're going to find out about my brand new six hour interactive course Oh and don't forget about my july 2015 expat wisdom seminar in central america Go to expatwisdom.com click on the seminar link and find out all about that too It's about a month and a half away so you still have plenty of time to make arrangements So again go to expatwisdom.com and click on the latin seminar link South of the border down Mexico You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america coming to you twice a week from

[27:41] somewhere south of the border email me the expat files at gmail.com And don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on latin america See you next time nos vemos