Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller dives into the complexities of language learning in Latin America, the lifestyle of U.S. embassy workers, and the cultural dynamics expats face. He discusses the limitations of formal Spanish education, the stereotypes surrounding embassy workers, and the benefits of immersion and relationships for language acquisition. This episode offers a candid look at the expat experience and the challenges of living in a culturally rich but linguistically diverse region.
Johnny begins by discussing the challenges expats face when learning Spanish in Latin America. He emphasizes that formal education in Spanish is insufficient for real-life communication, as Latin Americans use slang and regional variations. Johnny also highlights the differences in language comprehension between expats and native speakers, using examples like popular music and everyday interactions. He concludes by noting that even long-term residents may struggle with understanding the language due to these regional and slang-based differences.
He then shifts focus to the lifestyle and behavior of U.S. embassy workers in Latin America. He highlights that many of them do not learn Spanish, avoid mingling with locals, and live in a bubble of first-world privilege. He explains that these embassy workers often have strong prejudices against local populations, consider them inferior, and are eager to be posted to first-world European embassies. Despite their relatively modest salaries, they enjoy a luxurious lifestyle due to housing allowances and proximity to embassy facilities. Johnny emphasizes that these behaviors are not recommended for expats and that embassy workers often have a very different experience from the average local population.
In the next segment, Johnny discusses the stereotype of the 'Ugly American' and how embassy workers often set a poor example, contributing to the term's origin. He contrasts this with the average Latin American's perspective, noting that embassy staff must maintain a positive public image. Johnny then shifts focus to practical advice for expats learning Spanish, suggesting engaging local tutors in scenic or culturally significant locations. He highlights the effectiveness of learning Spanish through romantic relationships with locals who speak no English, emphasizing the cultural advantages expats have in Latin America. He also mentions the common issues with local men, such as infidelity, and how Latin women often view first-world men as ideal partners. He provides statistics about the rarity of first-world interactions in Latin America, noting that only one in 20 people have ever spoken to a first-world person, which contributes to the romantic and social advantages expats enjoy.
Johnny then discusses the effectiveness of learning Spanish through immersion with a Latin family or a romantic relationship with a Latina. He shares the story of expat Eddie, who learned Spanish quickly by dating a local girl. Johnny emphasizes that while immersion programs can be a good way to learn Spanish, they often come with substandard living conditions and can be challenging for expats used to first-world standards. He also highlights that immersion families often take in students for financial reasons and may not provide ideal living conditions, but the experience can be valuable for language acquisition.
In the next segment, Johnny discusses the benefits and costs of Spanish immersion programs in Latin America, emphasizing that they are affordable and effective for language learning. He outlines two main approaches: one through organized immersion programs, which can be expensive, and another through local arrangements, which are cheaper and offer more flexibility. He highlights the importance of finding families and tutors locally to avoid potential issues with poor living conditions and to get a better deal. Johnny also mentions the cultural aspects of living with a host family, including the rough living conditions and the need to be respectful and patient.
Finally, Johnny recounts his experience living with an immersion family in Latin America, describing how the family's relatives frequently visited, bringing daughters, brothers, or cousins, and engaging in casual gatherings with coffee, cake, and cookies. These visits were often a social strategy for the family to introduce eligible females to potential suitors, particularly expats like Johnny, whom they perceived as wealthy. Johnny initially felt awkward and out of place, struggling with his Spanish and the cultural expectations. Over time, he began to engage more, eventually going on a date with a girl not from the immersion family. Johnny also notes that immersion experiences tend to be more intense and personal in smaller towns, where families may have ulterior motives, and some expats, including female ones, have reported similar experiences, though often in reverse.
Topics
Language learning in Latin America, Cultural differences in communication, Expat experiences with language barriers, Regional variations in Spanish, U.S. embassy workers in Latin America, Cultural and social dynamics of expat communities, Language barriers and cultural misunderstandings, Privilege and lifestyle of embassy workers, Prejudices and stereotypes in expat communities, Ugly American stereotype, Embassy workers' behavior, Learning Spanish through local tutors
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:13 The Real Experience of Living in Latin America 00:00:41 Challenges of Learning Spanish in Latin America 00:01:16 The Importance of Local Language and Slang 00:03:27 Johnny's Personal Experience with Language Learning 00:04:27 Language Skills of Embassy Personnel in Latin America 00:04:59 The Surprising Reality of Embassy Workers' Spanish Skills 00:06:19 The Desire for First-World Embassies 00:07:44 The Luxurious Lifestyle of Embassy Workers 00:09:39 The Origin of the 'Ugly American' Stereotype and Embassy Behavior 00:10:40 The Benefits of Learning Spanish in Scenic or Culturally Significant Locations 00:14:00 The Rarity of First-World Interactions in Latin America 00:14:16 Eddie's Spanish Learning Journey Through Romance 00:14:57 The Effectiveness of Immersion for Learning Spanish 00:17:08 The Financial Motivation Behind Immersion Programs 00:19:03 Two Ways to Do an Immersion Program and Cost Differences 00:20:30 Finding Immersion Programs Locally and Cost Savings 00:21:00 Potential Living Conditions and Cultural Considerations 00:23:26 The Social Dynamics of Immersion Families in Latin America 00:25:01 The Economic and Social Motivations Behind Immersion Family Interactions
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:03] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America. The show that tells you what it's really like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. I tell it just like it is, not the version they give you in those glossy travel magazines, or the picture they paint for you in those international traveler websites, where they're only trying to sell you something. What's it really like for expats living in Latin America? Well, it's time to take off those rose colored glasses and find out. So let's get started. Wouldn't you know it, a funny thing happened to me on my way to learning Spanish down here in Latin America. You had to know that I'd eventually hit on the subject of learning your Spanish down here. But, as usual, it's not as simple as it seems. And for all of you up there in first world land, who think it's enough to take a couple of years of Spanish up in high school or college, I know quite a few people who think that's
[00:51] enough studying, but believe me, it's not. And the truth is, with a couple of years of first world book learning, all they can really do is read the road signs in Spanish, order food in a Mexican restaurant and get a taxi. And a couple of semesters of high school Spanish is not enough to avoid getting ripped off by one of those taxi drivers either. Because when you talk to one of those guys and you're fumbling rudimentary Spanish, they get you pegged right away for a sucker. The thing is, no matter how much formal Spanish you learned up in the first world, there's really no substitute for mixing with the people, because the people down here speak in what they call modizmos and dicios, which simply means slang in English. And to prove my point, I know people who've had four years of Spanish up in the first world and they can't even follow a simple Spanish soap opera on TV, and those things
[01:38] are geared to gardeners and cleaning ladies in any Latin fourth grader. And the same thing happens in reverse down here. When a Latin person goes to college or high school and takes a few years of English, it's rare that they can follow a Hollywood movie in English and they always resort to reading the Spanish subtitles. And Latins as a rule love our popular music in English. They can hum Stairway to Heaven alright, and they can even mouth some of the words, but even Latins with good conversational English skills don't know what we're talking about, not in the songs. But come to think of it, I don't know what Robert Plant's singing about in Stairway to Heaven either. Well, I guess that was a bad example. And the same goes for me. I've been down here about 20 years and I give myself about an 80% in Spanish fluency. And still, I hear the same popular Spanish songs over and over and I still don't get
[02:24] all the words. And that's because in casual conversation, people always speak in slang, which Latins call modismos or dicos. And what's worse is there's 20 Latin American countries, and each country has its own version of slang. And the really big Latin countries like Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Peru, well, in their different departments or states, they've developed their own versions of slang too. So if you're in a country like Costa Rica, and you think you've got it down, you think you know your Spanish, and you understand slang and street talk quite well, as soon as you run into someone from let's say the Dominican Republic, or Argentina, or another Latin country, the first thing you'll notice is that that person does have a different kind of accent, and every so often, you'll have no idea what they're talking about. You'll say, what? No entiendo, reperter la por favor, which means, I don't understand, could you repeat
[03:13] that please? So the combination of a different kind of accent, and the use of different slang words, is bound to occasionally confuse a non-native Spanish speaker like me, even though, like I said, I've been down here 20 years, and after that amount of time, you think I'd have a pretty good handle on Spanish by now. I guess I'm just thick when it comes to languages, I don't know. Though, 80% comprehension isn't too bad. So all you expat wannabes up there, whether you've taken Spanish classes or not up in the first world, when you come down here with the idea of living permanently, or on a long-term basis, it's a given that you're going to want to learn Spanish like the natives, or as close as you can get to it, in the shortest time possible, that is. At least that's the experience I have with all expats that come down here, who are not working for government agencies, because what I've seen a lot of times is people coming
[04:01] down from the United States and working, for example, at the US embassy in a Latin country, I'm referring now to people at the embassy not in high-level positions, not the ambassador himself, or the assistant ambassador, and people at the high-end, who really have to know Spanish well to get those kind of jobs, not those guys. I'm talking about embassy personnel, in your standard clerical or professional job, like accounting, or human resources, or some other position like that in the embassy. Anyway, surprisingly, what I see many times with these people is they don't know any Spanish at all, or just barely enough to get by in the grocery store, what we call kitchen Spanish down here. Of course, all high-level embassy people have to know Spanish pretty well, because they have to mingle with the Spanish-speaking bureaucrats, and anyway, that's how first-world people
[04:46] get posted down here, first of all, they have to know the language. But for all the first-world auxiliary people that come down to work at the embassy, support people, of which there could be dozens and dozens in the U.S. embassy, anyway, the surprising truth is there really are a whole lot of first-world auxiliary people who don't speak much Spanish at all. And even after they've been down here working at the embassy in a 100% Spanish-speaking country, even if they've been here two, three, four, even five years at a time, often when they're done with their job here and they return to the states or get posted to another country like Albania or Slovakia or whatever, they still don't know much Spanish. And that might seem hard to believe I know, but you have to know something about people who work at the U.S. embassy and the military liaison group that's attached to every embassy.
[05:33] Those people, to a person, almost always develop a nice, tight little circle or groups of little clicks within clicks in the embassy, so whether they're on duty or off, they're always hanging around with their own kind. Fine, people from the states, English speakers just like themselves, because the fact is most of them don't want to be there at all. They don't want to be in a Spanish-speaking country. They don't want to mix with the locals, who they consider crass, uneducated, third-world, second-class citizens. And in fact, the vast majority of these embassy people, when they're posted to a Latin country like Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, whatever, they put on a happy face in public. But behind the scenes, they're just biding their time, waiting for a posting in a high-class first-world European country, those most desired embassies where everyone would love
[06:19] to be working. I'm talking about Rome, Paris, Berlin, and London, where the style of living is first-world all the way, there are no sweaty, unwashed masses to deal with, and in fact, a posting like that's considered a glamour position, and anyone stuck in a third-world embassy outpost like Peru is just dying for a chance at a first-world posting like that. So basically, when you're stuck in a third-world posting in a Latin American country, you put on a happy face, but behind the scenes, it's all mighty different. And I know that, because I've been to those embassy parties where these embassy types have a few drinks and loosen up, and I hear all the stories of how they really dislike pushing paper in a third-world backwater. And because deep down they've got some prejudices against the common Latin folks, and in fact, an obvious first-world superiority complex, you almost never see these embassy types mingling
[07:06] with the common folks, unless it's part of their job description, but never on their free time. Nor do you see them rubbing elbows at common folk bars, restaurants, and discos. Nope, they're always hanging out at the high-end joints and with each other and other English speakers. And even these embassy auxiliary guys that make only 40 or 50 thousand bucks a year, they live actually very high off the hog down here, and can afford to live a life of luxury they could never dream of living on a salary like that up in the first world, because up there, 40 or 50 thousand bucks a year is basically middle or slightly lower middle class. But down here in Latin America, 40 or 50 thousand bucks is not only upper middle class, it's actually scraping the bottom levels of rich. And add that to the fact that first-world embassy folks don't have any housing costs.
[07:52] Because in addition to their salary, they get a housing allowance. And what you might not know is that the embassy actually tells its first-world workers what parts of the city they can live in, and those spots are always in the high-red areas of the city, close to the embassy itself. And by the way, the embassies themselves are always built in the highest rent districts in all the Latin American capital cities. So even the lowest first-world auxiliary worker posted to a Latin American embassy has a very enviable lifestyle. But here's the problem. Because they all live in a little glass bowl close to the embassy, and they hang around with first-world embassy workers, like themselves and English-speaking Latin high rollers who they've met through embassy dealings, well that means that these embassy types have almost no feeling for what it's like for the average Latin American person or family living down
[08:40] here. And they don't really want to know. All they care about is getting posted to a European first-world embassy. Which by the way usually never comes because those posts are so sought after and hard to get, it's impossible for every embassy worker to get his wish. So my point in talking about these embassy folks is just to mention that these guys live in a bubble and actually don't have to learn Spanish the way the locals speak it, because they work and pal around with their own kind. And the only constant contact they might have with the average Latin person is with the cleaning lady, the gardener, tellers at the banks, and the waiters at the restaurants. So they have a pretty strange life. And what they do and how they act in Latin America is not at all what we recommend here on the expat files. Now I know some of you might disagree with me, or you might doubt what I've just said. But let me just mention that nearly every long-term expat that I know who's had any
[09:29] dealings at all with these embassy folks off hours will tell you a similar version of the same story. So it's hard not to see that these embassy people set a pretty bad example, and it's no wonder where that term ugly American came from. But like I said, the average Latin doesn't see that side of things, because embassy workers have to put on a happy face in public. They're supposed to be the goodwill ambassadors for the United States. Yeah, right. And speaking of embassies, especially the U.S. embassy, I'll be talking quite a bit about them on a later show, because I have a lot of good behind-the-scenes stories to tell you. So stay tuned for that. But let's get back to talking about the very best ways to learn your Spanish. So once you've arrived down here and you're looking to learn your Spanish the way the locals speak it, you can always hire a local tutor and have him or her come to your hotel
[10:15] or your apartment, or you could even get your lessons from your tutor at a nice scenic site like a park with a great view of oceans, rivers, volcanoes, or a skyline or whatever. Or you can meet at a nice outdoor sidewalk cafe and sip cappuccino while you're getting your lessons. Expats that I personally know who've done it this way swear that if you get your lessons outside at a place that's very scenic or historic or culturally significant, well in that case, somehow it seems to really speed the process along, at least we like to think it does. And on a past show I talked about how you pay these tutors and how you find a good one. You can check the archives for that. But my wild and crazy friend Expat Eddie, who's no genius by any means, but who turned $2,000 into $2 million down here simply by keeping his eyes open and opening little pint-sized
[11:01] businesses that were just a little bit cleaner, a little bit nicer, and a little bit more first world than the competition. Eddie didn't reinvent the wheel, but he's a great example of how Expats can make a ton down here by just applying some of that built-in first world know-how to mediocre third world methods. Anyway, Expat Eddie has the right idea when he says the best way for anyone coming down here to learn their Spanish is to hook up as fast as you can with a Latin girlfriend or boyfriend, whatever the case may be, one that speaks absolutely zero English. And of course, no matter how bad your love life was up in the first world before you came down, once you get here, well, it's very easy to hook up, even if you're plain or nerdy or the timid type. That's because you got those extra three points awarded to you automatically because you're a first world person, which I spoke about on a previous show, so check back for that
[11:49] in the archives if you want. And if you haven't figured it out already by listening to my show a few times, just the fact that you come from the first world, you look, dress, act, and sound like a first world gringo or first world European, well, that's your ticket to love and romance down here. Because in the case of first world men, it's nearly every lower and middle class Latin girls dream to hook up with a first world guy because they've all got these very positive stereotypes about us, whether they're true or not. And I've talked about that in a past show too, so I won't go into it, but I will say this. Every young Latin girl that's single has had at least one or more romantic relationships with a Latin guy that went very sour. Whether the guy they were with turned out to be an alcoholic, he physically abused her, or he just cheated on her, which is the most common reason for a breakup.
[12:36] And it won't surprise you that it's almost always the guy's fault. But Latin guys just keep on cheating like there's no tomorrow, because after all, this is a macho society. All the ladies down here have stories like that, and in their minds, first world gringos and Europeans are knights in shining armor. So don't be surprised expats and expat wannabes when you come down here, suddenly and miraculously, you've had two or three points added to that mediocre sixth that you always thought you raided up in the first world. What I mean to say if girls never gave you the time of day up in Schenectady, don't worry because once down here, you'll be in big demand. Though not in high volume tourist areas like Costa Rica and Cancun, etc, etc. Where we first worlders, especially as gringos, are so common that we've long outworn our welcome, and the locals, the men and the women, only look at us like just another tourist
[13:24] with a pocket full of dollars. But in the rest of Latin America, in those 20 countries where 98% of the Latin American people have never even spoken one word face to face with a first world person, well when one of us does show up in an off to tourist track place like that, we carry a huge amount of cash, eh? We get extra points in almost every area you can think of, whether you're talking about romance or trustworthiness or business acumen or loyalty or even intelligence. Latin Americans give us credit even when it's not deserved. And listen to this statistic. Did you know that only one in 20 Latin American people have ever been face to face with a first world person? In other words, only one in 20 Latins have ever spoken a single word to a first world gringo or European. That, according to a big university sociology study down in Columbia.
[14:12] And you guessed it, almost all of them who have are living in those high volume tourist areas. Anyway, expat Eddie is right, and that's how he learned his Spanish. When he first got down here more than a dozen years ago, it didn't take him two weeks and he already was hooked up with a beautiful young Latin girl who didn't speak a lick of English. And realistically, Eddie, in my mind, is nothing but a 5 on the 10 scale, in looks that is. And his new hot Latina girlfriend was a solid 8 pushing a 9. And Eddie was the kind of guy back in the States who never was a ladies man nor did he have much luck with him at all. He was one of those guys who always reached for ladies out of his league so he came up empty handed, nearly all the time. And believe me, in two weeks Eddie had the girl of his dreams. And in six months, Eddie's Spanish was practically perfect. And the same thing goes for first world ladies that come down here.
[15:00] You hook up with a Latin boyfriend who speaks no English or practically no English, and in six months you'll be speaking like a local too. However, a good percentage of expats who come down here, male or female, are not single. They're coming down with a family or they're married or they're coming down with a significant other. And in that case, you'll have to go the private tutor route or Spanish school, both very good ways to learn your Spanish, but not tops on the list. The number one best way, of course, being hooking up with a Latin boyfriend or girlfriend. But if it's impossible for you to do that, your second best way to learn Spanish is through immersion, living a while with a Latin family that speaks no English. That means all your waking hours, you'll hear nothing but Spanish. And admittedly, it could be a mighty rough first two weeks, living under those conditions. Because if you come down more or less completely clueless about Spanish, and you know just
[15:45] about enough Spanish to order a Taco Bell, well, I guarantee you sometime in that first two or three weeks, you're just going to want to scream. Especially when you're standing in the shower at six in the morning, and there's either no water coming out of the shower head, or maybe what's coming out is ice cold, or it's coming out the color of cappuccino and smells like sewage. So let me warn you, when you sign on with an immersion family, there could be some tense and even some much more embarrassing moments than that. You'll have plenty of time to make an ass out of yourself, especially if you get a case of Montezuma's Revenge, which I assure you, you're going to get at one time or another from your host family's not-so-sanitary home cooking. Okay, immersion programs. They sound like a great way to learn your Spanish, and a great way to learn the local Spanish customs and culture. I mean, that's the whole point, you're living with a family, right?
[16:32] And almost always, it'll be a middle-class Latin family, middle-class Latin style that is, which means that family's probably making between $250 and $500 a month. And because in immersion programs, you're like a boarder at a boarding house, or a kid in a foster family, you'll be using all their facilities, including eating meals with them, sleeping in one of their bedrooms, and using their bathroom, shower, and laundry facilities. Which let me warn you, are not at all first world. And do remember this, the family that you're hooked up with is in the immersion program, not out of the goodness of their heart, not because they like to help out clueless, backpacking gringos and Europeans, no, but because they need the money. And in fact, a lot of these families, if they didn't have one or two students paying them to be in the immersion program, well, they'd be dead broke themselves.
[17:20] And in fact, by Latin American standards, if you're a family that offers itself as an immersion program family, every student you take in is like having an extra complete salary in the family. And though usually, families only take one immersion student at a time, it's not because they wouldn't take 10 or 20 if they could, and stack them up like marbles in a 10 by 10 room. They would if they could, but it's the fact that nearly every first world immersion student wants his own bedroom, especially the women immersion program students. They don't want to bunk up with drunken Uncle Julio, or Cousin Hector with a prison tattoo on his knuckles. First world people who get into these programs have an absolute minimum requirement that they have some privacy, a room to themselves. And it's got to be a real bonafide room too, with real wood or cement walls and floor and
[18:07] ceiling. Well, I take that back about the ceiling. At least half the middle class houses in Latin America have corrugated tin roofs like a first world chicken coop. But be that as it may, I guarantee you that the living conditions while you're with that family are going to be absolutely substandard according to your first world mind and the way you look at things. And it might cross your mind that it's not only sad and pathetic, but it's a sure bet that you're going to feel very sorry for that family and force yourself to grin and bear it because you know that the family really needs the extra money. And even if you suffer along in really dingy conditions for a month or two or even three, when you're finished, it'll certainly be an experience you'll never forget and you'll know you're Spanish. So, you'll have to keep that in mind and try to hang in there. I mean, think about it. It's not forever, it's cheap, and in the end it's going to pay off. And there's some version of immersion programs available in every big and medium sized city
[18:56] in Latin America. In some cities like Antigua Guatemala and Copan Honduras have made almost an industry out of it. Now, there's really two ways you can do an immersion program, and one way you can save a hell of a lot of money, so listen up. First, you could stay with a family a month or two or three and pick up little bits of Spanish as you go along from them, the family that you're living with. And during the day, you can go to one of the local Spanish schools and get lessons from a tutor, or hire a tutor on your own and they're always available. Or you can hook up with one of the immersion programs via the internet and you'll get that room and board of the Spanish family and during the day they'll hook you up with a Spanish school and you'll get formal lessons. So your whole visit will be covered. And what's it cost? Well, it's dirt cheap all right by first world standards, but believe it or not, if you book
[19:43] it all by the internet through an immersion program that's specifically made to assist first world people coming down to live with families and take to classes and all that, well you're going to pay a lot more, anywhere from $800 to $1,500 for a month. And I suggest at least a month or you don't get too much out of it. But the cheap way to go and the way I prefer is this, you go down to a Spanish city or town that has a lot of Spanish immersion programs and you find these on the internet really easily and you just arrive in town and you check the bulletin boards out and those are bulletin boards posted practically everywhere in cafe internets, restaurants, in tourist information centers, in central parks, all over the place. Anyway, there are always families on those boards offering immersion program room and board which if you look around a little bit you probably could get for $200 or $300 a
[20:30] month. And on that same board you could find your own private tutor who will teach you during the daytime for about $200 or $300 a month and you could end up spending $400 to $600 a month for the whole set up instead of $800 to $1,500 the other way and you'll be able to check out beforehand a number of the prospective houses that you might be staying at instead of buying a pig and a poke over the internet. Because who knows what kind of ramshackle chicken coop style house you might get stuck in if you hook up with an immersion family sight unseen over the internet. I mean you don't want to live a month or two at a house that doesn't have running water all the time, a family with a couple of big old smelly dogs crapping everywhere and driveway chickens roosting in the kitchen. Not that that's bound to happen but I do know some expats with stories and by the way when you do get tutored during the day in any one of these programs whether you arrange it yourself
[21:19] when you get there or you hook it up in advance with one of those immersion programs on the internet. Anyway in either case you're only going to be tutored about 3 or 4 hours a day because after being drilled for that long completely in Spanish your brains about had it so normally you take the afternoon off. Now if you live with an immersion family you're going to have to eat the food and live just like them and you're going to have to sleep and live in the room that they provide you and believe me it will be the simple life and awful rough around the edges. And if you don't like something around that house like that thick yellowish gray mineral crust that's stuck to the toilet bowl sink and shower head well I take that back normally there won't be a shower head just a rusted out old tube or maybe you don't like the idea that the ancient toilet seat has all its paint worn off and that it's held together with
[22:05] duct tape to say nothing about the food you're going to get. Anyway you're still a guest in their house even though you're paying and if you make one crack or give a sad face they're going to be insulted. I mean if you're sitting in the living room staring at the sofa because it's got a big wide rip in the seat and the stuffing's being torn out by the cat well it's best to keep a straight face and ignore it because you see latins are very proud of what little they have so be a good guest and remember they need you as much as you need them. That three or four hundred bucks a month you're paying allows Papa and Uncle Jorge to sit on their asses all day and go to the cantina and get drunk every night. With your financial contribution the men in the family don't need to have a regular job and often they don't which is another small way the gringo dollar contaminates latin society you see what I mean and here's another amusing thing I'm sure you haven't heard before.
[22:55] Now some years back I was in an immersion program and I stayed with a family for a month or two and I noticed that soon after I got there there would be dinner and after dinner we'd be sitting around the living room with the television on my Spanish being very crappy it was in fact a little nerve-wracking for me because I didn't get anything they were talking about though they often converse directly at me thinking that I did so I just nodded a lot and said clado clado which means mm-hmm all right I get it and suddenly at the door there would be a knock and an ant would show up like six or six thirty at night and she'd come in with a daughter or two and they'd sit on the couch and shoot the breeze with the family for an hour or two have coffees cookies and cake and leave in a couple of days later the process would repeat the same ant would come with a daughter or two sometimes with a brother or a male cousin too they'd sit have cookies cake coffee we'd sit around
[23:44] for a while they'd leave and that would be the end of it and the following week the same kind of thing happened there was a knock at the door another ant came this time with the uncle and a daughter or two they sat around had cookies coffee and cake and all the time I'm thinking man these Latin families are sociable that stuff never happens up where I come from in Chicago no one up there ever drops in for cakes and cookies unless they're invited and it's somebody's birthday and these Latins they do it two or three times a week and me with my bad Spanish I kept my mouth shut most of the time and when they questioned me on this and that and tried to make conversation I felt like kind of a jerk and let them go on to talk between themselves and this kind of thing went on all the while I stayed at the immersion family every few nights the relatives would show up again coffee cake and cookies and all that they'd make conversations sometimes with me and my Spanish little by
[24:30] little was getting better so I'd chime in once in a while smile at the girls and the boys and the brothers and the sisters and the aunts and the uncles until I finally figured out what was going on now like I said these immersion families are solidly middle-class which means they're basically pretty poor by first world standards well below that twenty four thousand dollar a year poverty line for a family of four the fact is the average immersion family was lucky to make five or six thousand a year but if you're an immersion family it's the perfect opportunity to parade all their eligible females in front of a captive first world gringo European like yours truly because there's no better son-in-law for a Latin family to have than a supposedly rich and available first world guy like me and of course these middle-class Latin families think that all us first worlders that come
[25:16] down to stay are rich because we can fork three or four hundred bucks out a month like nothing a whole salary for a working-class man down here in their minds guys like us are something special and parents and uncles and aunts want to hook us up with their daughters so every few nights or so they'd parade those eligible young females past me in the living room under the pretext of a casual family visit and it doesn't take an Einstein to figure it out even if you're in a foreign country and don't quite know the customs and I guess the parents and maybe even the girls were watching and waiting and hoping that some kind of sparks would fly hey and some of the girls were quite attractive really but at that early point in my life down here I could barely say past the Imodium in Spanish much less carry on a normal Spanish conversation with someone and finally after a few months
[26:01] when I did ask a girl out on a date and by the way it wasn't one of those girls they paraded in front of me at the immersion family anyway even three months after I'd been down in Latin America and had taken two solid months of Spanish tutoring when I went out to dinner with my first Spanish-speaking date and by the way she spoke zero English well after that date I knew I wasn't ready for primetime man talk about pregnant pauses and the next girl I took out I made sure she knew at least a little English so for me it was one step at a time and you know what I've heard a lot of the same kind of stories from expats regarding their own crazy immersion families it seems that the farther you are away from a high-volume tourist destination the cheaper the more intensive and the more personal those immersion courses become expats who take immersion courses in high-volume tourist areas almost never have scenes like that I mean the relatives all dropping in
[26:51] gussied up parading their eligible women folk in front of the clueless gringo but when you get out to the smaller towns out to the boonies and into the hinterlands it's not unusual for the family to have ulterior motives which as you might imagine some expats quite enjoy and some lady expats that I know have reported the same problems but in reverse it seemed too that over the time they'd been at their immersion home some nights there seemed to be an unusual number of male visitors after dinner never in groups always one by one and always kind of overdressed and every female expat who told me a story like that thought it was funny or cute but none of them actually ever hooked up well they did eventually hook up but not with anyone from the family though they might be lying you've been listening to the expat files living in latin america and don't forget you can email me
[27:43] on anything at all about latin america the expat files at gmail.com that's the expat files at gmail.com see you next time nos vemos