#1074 – The Expat Files: Crime, Cost of Living, and Cultural Challenges in Latin America

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

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started All right let's talk about crime assaults robberies et cetera in Latin America after all if you're gonna have a Plan B a number one concern is Safety if you don't have that well, everything else is up for grabs now, you know 90% of the Lame Street news

[00:45] Reported out of Latin America is negative because you know the saying if it bleeds it leads No one especially in the States wants to hear about happy stress-free people enjoying themselves in a paradise south of the border They want to hear about riots killings earthquakes volcanoes floods hurricanes kidnappings extortions I mean really no one wants to hear about a guy living in a tropical Paradise sitting by the pool with his pet sloth and toucan living high off the hog on his $1,500 a month Social Security check that kind of news is boring. It does not sell funny thing Is though I still have a certain group of people sending me emails saying Johnny Are you sure I can live decently on my $3,000 a month pension? And I've taken how many times do I have to tell you $3,000 a month?

[01:30] You're in the 1% crowd your upper middle class here in Latin America though It seems a huge percentage of people just don't want to believe that I'd even go so far as to say if you pulled people On the street and let's say New Jersey or Chicago nine out of ten of them would say they'd never move to Latin America Even if they could live the life of Riley much better than they're living now even if that's true They think it's just too dangerous How strange is it that we get such negative opinions about Latin America almost exclusively from people who've never even visited there? Armchair tourists my Chicago buddy Tony Caudill one of the best lead players I ever saw But he never really made it because he wasn't dependable and like to drink in fact you pick your guitar hero even Hendrix Tony Caudill could play all that dead drunk on stage laying on his back many times during our last set

[02:19] That's exactly how he ended up He used to say Johnny isn't it funny that the most vocal even famous music critics can't play a note themselves man He was right about that it reminds me of parents who talk about other kids not being brought up, right? I can't even count the times bad parents have accused other parents of being bad parents while being Oblivious to the fact that their own kids are monsters. Hey, I've experienced that in my own family So I've learned not to chime in because apparently I don't have a say in the matter because I don't have any kids I guess there's some kind of unwritten law that you have to be a bad parent to recognize other bad parents But I digress but not too much because the subject here is crimes and misdemeanors in Latin America And how gringos and expats point the finger at others while not recognizing the disasters. They're creating in their own backyards

[03:06] More on that subject from listener Kirsten. She says Johnny Americans are hypocrites at times I've been guilty of it myself. She says crime in the US is escalating beyond control Thanks to the internet. There seems to be a sort of closet industry around young people mostly entitled white kids and African-American males Stealing luxury goods from high-end stores in places like New York, LA Chicago and San Francisco There are plenty of videos showing them leisurely cleaning out big box stores and drugstores like Walgreens, too And when looters see the cops or someone starts filming them, they don't run They just casually walk out as if they were out for the day. Just shopping Oh and have you checked out the YouTube and other videos of rednecks and people of color

[03:54] Assaulting Asian Americans to Johnny you talked about the fact that in many states now It's not even a crime or misdemeanor worthy of hauling someone down to the police station unless they've stolen over Seven or eight hundred dollars worth of goods I wish that had been the case when I was a young stupid Moron adolescent kid and now that everyone hates the police and no one wants to be one anymore Their morale is at an all-time low and they won't stick their necks out for anyone Just one iffy internet video and your career is over you're canceled It's only a natural logical conclusion that there are large Increases in violent crime in most all US cities now. In fact, if you live in any North American big city Everyone knows there are multiple areas It's dangerous to walk in by day and dangerous to walk at night in places that were previously crime free and the date that I'll hit

[04:46] The fan can be tracked back precisely to the George Floyd incident I don't have to tell you what Chicago, Detroit, New York, San Francisco and LA have turned into scarier yet is the realization if you are robbed assaulted or find your car ripped off or vandalized you can be nearly a hundred percent certain the Person even if he's caught will never be held accountable in a previous show You mentioned some stats yourself saying how a criminal has to be convicted of a crime Multiple times in court before he ever does a day in jail the thing I don't get Johnny's you hear all the time that the United States has the most percentage of people incarcerated per capita yet Most criminals get caught and released or not even picked up at all. I don't get it Is it just that the US might have a criminally high percentage of criminals someone needs to explain it to me

[05:34] I don't get it though It's absolutely true since the arrival of viral videos and the cancel culture police have backed off to such an extent They find arresting people causes more trouble than it's worth You can imagine then that the cops are forever having to watch their back and defend their decisions too as if it's more likely they broke the rules than the person they arrested the cops are the suspects now not the Criminals and still if you asked the average American about living a life in Latin America They'll say it's simply not safe. Just loaded with narcos extortionists and kidnappers Anyway, Johnny enough of the rant keep up the good work I'll be at your next seminar for sure signed Kirsten from Portland. Oh Portland. Yeah, right She had a know about crime. They defunded the police there right enough said about that and

[06:22] Then comes this email from a 50 something Brit named Colin who's living in Costa Rica He says Johnny You see lots of internet websites and blogs saying you can live in Costa Rica for fifteen hundred dollars a month and you Johnny Say it's just not true. It can't be done. So who's right the internet gurus or expert expat Johnny. Well Johnny I'm here to tell you you're wrong. It can be done I know I've been doing it for the last three years I'm the living proof but to pull it off you'll have to follow a certain set of rules In other words, there are certain caveats to that claim number one I live in a neighborhood where everything's within walking distance So I don't need a car and I don't have a car payment or have to pay for gas I can walk everywhere number two Everything I eat is grown or produced locally if I started buying imported food and started eating at the local

[07:11] Restaurants even the cheapie ones that would blow my budget He says I spend three hundred dollars a month for rent, but it's a pure Costa Rican style apartment That means the pushcart guys hawking their goods and the driveway chickens are clucking and crowing and on the street at all hours I admit at first there were lots of sleepless nights, but within a month. I got used to it He says things are cheaper in the small town. He lives in but being in a small town There are very few cultural activities for foreigners though That's great for a person on a tight budget Then he says the town he lives in is so small the little national health care clinic doesn't even have ambulance service I'm 56 he says and I don't like thinking ahead till i'm 70 or 80 But obviously my health care wants and needs will be quite different

[07:57] I'm thinking being on the national health care system living in a small town without ambulance service Would not be such a wise decision for me as I get old and decrepit Then he says also in small towns like the one i'm in there are lots of power outages What people don't think about much is that when the power is out? So is your water because water pumps run on electricity. Oh and johnny I noticed you talk a lot about having a maid maintenance guy or gardener For me and most single guys living alone in an apartment. We don't need a full-time maid Maybe once a week would be good But in costa rica, if you have a maid come in one day a week She's going to charge you a lot of money because she wants a full-time job working at a place three to five days a week You mentioned in places off the tourist trail like honduras guadamala and salvador

[08:42] The going rate for a maid is 15 or 20 a day in costa rica You pay twice that and more So for me to pay 40 or 50 for a maid to clean my little apartment My budget just won't allow it so i'd rather do it myself But those are some of the dilemmas you'll have to face if you're living in costa rica on 1500 a month But you do get used to it the thing is living in a small town in the boonies or Sort of dingy neighborhood is the trade-off when you've only got 300 bucks a month to spend for rent As far as my internet plan I have a cheap smartphone and a pay-as-you-go plan a decent monthly plan would be way too expensive So I just take 10 bucks charge up my cell phone Last me maybe a week and a half or two plus the pay-as-you-go plan includes A couple of gigabytes to run a hot spot when I want to use my computer

[09:31] Then there's health care He says I pay about 100 bucks a month to participate in the country's socialized health care medical system It's perfectly fine for bumps knocks falls trauma the usual aches and pains and stuff However for anything beyond that the lines are long and once you do get an appointment You'll often find the clinic's hours have changed the doctor's not in or maybe he's on vacation But still it's adequate for the basic stuff However, he said when I developed a detached retina I paid for the procedure out of pocket at a private clinic because I didn't want to wait the week Which could have turned into months for the required surgery in the public system going to a private clinic He says he paid about five grand to have it done though He said john, you're right crime and petty theft here are a problem And on the increase is noticeably worse than it was three years ago when I first arrived

[10:20] But I dress down like a backpacker and don't wear any jewelry or have a flashy expensive smartphone or an apple anything So i'm on no bad guy's hit list. At least I don't think so You're right on another count too. Johnny. I just cannot learn my spanish Not that I don't want to or don't have the aptitude It's just that every Costa Rican wants to speak english with me They know if they can they can work in the tourism business and get tips from gringos Europeans and other foreigners in dollars It's a well-known fact and you hear locals mention once in a while that latinos russians and germans are terrible tippers So I guess that's all for now. Johnny I just thought people ought to know that it is possible to live in costa rica for 1500 a month and for a retired couple something more like 2500 a month But that kind of budget's out of the question if you're in the dating scene because then you'll be dating going to restaurants bars

[11:11] Events and that will completely Discombobulate your budget then he says hang in there and keep plugging. Johnny signed colin on the budget plan in costa rica All right. Thanks for that colin and you know, I haven't heard that word Discombobulate since I don't know when all right changing up a bit. Here's another sad development That's directly due to gringos piling in certain areas in latin america This is from the ecuador daily newspaper el mercurio again ecuador has been on international living's top five Destinations for gringos and expats for a dozen years now and now in certain areas the places are starting to look like costa rica Anyway, since so many gringos and expats moved down buy some land and decide to build well Naturally the bureaucratic slugs want a piece of that action as nicely pointed out in this article and i'll translate the title of the article

[12:01] Persistent obstacles exist to urban planning building and development It starts off saying it now takes well over two months to get a building permit or certificate of condition And a license to build in ecuador And if the land or lat to be built on doesn't match the description found in the municipalities land records The owner or builder will have to have the land Resurvey and it says if you're going to build at all you have to have the plans drawn up by a registered and certified architect That's a given then you have to apply to the government for what's called a certificate of condition an urban license to build Commonly known as alinea de fabrica based on that in the end bureaucrats will tell you if you can or cannot build on your property

[12:47] That means you could own or buy a choice piece of land that the government won't even let you build on it's a possibility It's all up to them Man, that sucks It says here if you're going to build on a new or raw piece of land You must comply with certain government requirements including a geo Referencia topographical survey. It must be done by a certified professional surveyor, too And then it says get this You must provide your central our passport and your voting certificate to apply for that building permit So if you're not a resident or citizen I imagine your architect will stand in for you and supply that paperwork Then it says after you have this survey done The building and land department would decide if there are any errors and or discrepancies compared to any old surveys in the registry

[13:33] They will decide if the old and new surveys are close enough within instrumentation and calculation error Because as it turns out almost all new surveys have some bit of error compared to surveys done with rudimentary equipment Like knotted ropes by surveyors on horseback typical equipment used by surveyors a hundred or so years ago For example, since all surveys done before the invention of the transit were done with knotted rope on horseback That means your land would vary in size depending on if the rope was wet dry or humid Dependent too on the technique of the surveyor on horseback. So these days with each new modern survey Discrepancies large and small show up all the time So these days government slugs decide on a case-by-case basis whether the errors and discrepancies are technically acceptable

[14:24] Which can add three to four months extra to the process of getting a building permit Bottom line since gringles have piled in with many farmers and developers Subdividing their land into lots an all new building on raw land requiring another survey Even architects and builders are having a hard time unraveling all that extra paperwork getting permit after permit and jumping through the ever accumulating hoops Hmm sound familiar It's the same curse builders and architects have up in the states Have you ever tried to build a remodel anything up in the states? I have it was a nightmare even 30 plus years ago when I last built a house in the chicago land area I vowed i'd never do that again I didn't a few years later. I threw in the towel and ended up in latin america for good Meanwhile off the gringo tourist trail if you're gonna build something from scratch

[15:12] All you need is a local architect They'll push through all the paperwork get the permits Do all the legwork for you and usually after the architects finished the blueprints It only takes a week or two to get the building permit and if you need a new survey The architect will arrange that too and though i'm sure the same problem exists an old survey from 100 or 200 years ago Doesn't quite match up with the new one. I'm sure that happens all the time It has to but i've never ever heard of it holding up the permit and building process If you're building on raw land off the gringo tourist trail The municipality permits and inspections department will always accept the most recent survey And if someone a neighbor or whatever wants to contest a land survey They can take it to court But i've never ever heard of a case where that's happened not off the gringo tourist trail

[15:59] Anyway, I myself have been involved in at least 13 different building projects in four different latin countries And i've never heard of a modern recent survey being contested Though I have to admit a lot of old-time farmers with big spreads don't exactly know their own land boundaries Oh, they might say their land stretches to a certain big rock river or tree But until a registered surveyor comes out, no one knows exactly for sure By the way here in latin america when a property's surveyed where two property line corners intersect on a lot The surveyor will dig a little hole about four inches deep and as wide as a dinner plate He'll mix up some cement poured in that hole and scratch into the wet cement where the two lines intersect He'll also scratch a number there and the surveyor's initials and that little cement marker is called a mohon

[16:49] Mohon and since we're talking about living in the tropics where the plants grow like crazy Usually in a year or so those mohons are completely buried with new grown brush often difficult to locate a few years down the line But they're there. All right I've stumbled on a few myself while excavating a few trenches for electric and security camber cable All right Speaking of digging holes and trenches on your land and property one thing you really have to keep in mind here in latin America, there's no frost Therefore no frost line to worry about so unlike up in the states when you dig a trench and lay pipes or tubes Whatever you got to go below the frost line or your water lines will freeze etc Building footings must be below the frost line too That means you got to go something like three feet down or more Fort Chicago. Anyway, it varies You know the farther north you go the deeper the frost line and since there are no such hazards here in latin america builders

[17:39] Contractors and handymen will bury a cable or a pipe Sometimes just six or eight inches underground In fact many times you'll be walking around not just out in the boonies But in the city too and you'll see a green white or metal water or electrical pipe poking ever so slightly Up through the soil. So remember that next time you're digging in your backyard unless of course You're the guy who supervised or did the construction on the project and you know exactly where every pipe is And by the way, I do suggest when you build anything here in latin america, you take photos Everywhere you lay a water pipe or electrical line that includes electrical pipes lines and tubes in your walls because I know Bad things can happen. It's happened to me I have drilled holes and concrete block walls here in latin america to hang a picture a mirror Put up a shelf and had the bad luck of hitting a water pipe

[18:28] And now that simple little five minute project turns into a real adventure Thing is most good quality buildings have block and concrete walls And if you hit an electric or water line to repair it You'll have to blast out a big section of that wall And you better have a good idea where the pipes and tubes run underneath your floor, too Most homes and businesses have tile floors with a concrete base So if there's a small leak or an electrical problem in one of the tubes under your floor Well, you know, it's always worse when there's a water leak because often when you first detect a small water leak It's not at all obvious that the break is where you're seeing the water seepage By the way, every time I've had to chase down a water leak It wasn't the pipe itself that failed it was at the coupling joint or elbow where pipes were connected and glued It's almost always been a failure of the pipe glue itself though

[19:16] It's really not the fault of the glue. It's the way the surfaces were prepared before they were glued I've noticed latino plumbers are notoriously sloppy when setting pipe joints You're supposed to use a liquid pipe cleaner It's acetone actually to wipe and clean the joint before you glue the pipes together. That's standard practice up in the first row Well, i've never ever seen a latino plumber with acetone cleaner on hand instead They just wipe the ends down with a rag or thinner and that will work But over time those are the joints that always seem to fail But you know, that's the way things are done here in latin america. Someone comes in Does some plumbing or electrical when they're done? They flip the switches or turn on a water valve and if everything's fine. Hell the job's done pay me i'm out of here So what are you supposed to do? Well, I remember once when a plumber was doing a job

[20:01] I saw he was doing the usual latino plumber thing just wiping down the joints with a cloth before joining him Well instead of scolding him. I just went to the hardware store bought a quart of acetone I don't think it was eight bucks. I said look I want to see you use this on every joint No problem. He was happy to do it thing is it's all about the money The plumbers don't want to buy the acetone besides if you leave the cap off the canner bottle When you come back a few hours later to use it again The container is likely to be dry as a bone. It's so volatile. It evaporates faster than a stimmy check at a vegas strip club Anyway, I repeat you really must take photos of the pipes and tubes in your walls and especially Under the floor before they pour the concrete and put the tile down, of course Because if you don't and there is an electrical problem under the floor or a leak

[20:47] It would be a miracle if you could solve the problem yourself without calling it a gang of plumbers electricians and concrete guys All right, speaking of miracles How about this email from eddie? Not our favorite rags to riches expat eddie, but eddie He says dear johnny the other day. I was listening to your podcast and it miraculously paused as my six-year-old brought up his artwork Of the risen christ. All right me johnny here. By the way, he sent me a scan of the artwork too Really good for a kid his age. However, it's a typical white privileged caucasian. Jesus He'll probably get canceled for that or maybe 15 years from now It'll come back to haunt him in a job interview man. Am I glad i'm living in latin america? But I digress as usual anyway ed says he was proud of his art project

[21:32] He had made at a catholic school. He proudly told me about it and went back to playing Seconds later after leaving your podcast miraculously resumed playing all by itself on that note He says I find your talks about your personal faith interesting I understand you were a believer in your childhood and became an atheist in college And at this stage in your life, it sounds like you're open to religion as for me I struggle with my own faith as well However, it sounds like jesus was there when I was listening to your podcast that said I love your podcast I appreciate that you speak your mind and no matter what the marxists may say You keep on keeping on. So do keep on with that podcast. I enjoy listening a loyal listener from reading potsylvania ed Hmm potsylvania, isn't that where rocky and bow winkle came from or maybe it was boris in natasha not musin squirtle

[22:23] Anyway, thanks for that ed speaking of small miracles You know once expat eddie and I were in a bar in costa rica and he flipped the coin I don't know what for but he flipped it and it landed on its edge on the bar Really, what are the chances right and the bartender saw he said man That's a miracle and the gringo was sitting on the other side of eddie said i'll bet you 100 bucks You can't do it again. I said eddie eddie take that bet but tell him you want six thousand tries Because as it turns out every six thousand times you toss a nickel it will according to probability statistics land on its edge Now you're up to around ten or eleven thousand if it's a quarter because it's bigger with a higher center of gravity But for eddie's nickel six thousand point being not all miracles are miracles. They're statistical anomalies Digression, huh? You know speaking of religious conundrums ed here's something I never understood. What the hell does six ways from sunday mean?

[23:15] Well, I know how to use it what it suggests But what the hell did come from and why I remember back in the states I used to hear people say that once in a while like for example She was all over the road driving six ways from sunday You know, I used to think it was the other six days of the week, you know sunday being the seventh But then I heard people say two ways from sunday or five ways from sunday just one of life's mysteries I guess oh and speaking of lost in translation, you know those kinds of sayings called ditos in spanish Latinos who speak english but learned it secondhand not in the states never get it like for example Once I was sitting with a well-educated latino guy and one of the gringos in the group said the phrase clean as a whistle And the latino guy looked puzzled. Like I said, he had very good english, but he'd never been to the states He learned it in guatemala at a helicopter school. He looked puzzled and said what's so clean about a whistle?

[24:01] I don't get it He didn't know if they were talking about the act of whistling or a whistle itself as a matter of fact When he mentioned that I didn't quite know either. Why a whistle a physical whistle is not clean It's got spit all over it or maybe a whistle is a clean pure sound. Hmm. I don't know Oh another time I was at a party with my latina girlfriend. She spoke english pretty well She'd never been to the states but took english classes at night. Anyway, there were a couple of gringos there We were speaking english. She got it all till someone said money talks bull Walks then her face kind of scrunched up. She said it talks. What does it say suddenly silence? Then one of the gringos laughed thinking she was trying to say something clever, but she wasn't trying to be funny She was asking a serious question

[24:47] So when he left she got slightly embarrassed and said oh, I get it. I think is it about the dead presidents you have on your money By then we were all confused She said your gringo money might talk but mine doesn't she said she was talking about the Honduran limpera Boy, did she get that right? Then somebody clued her in that's what you call lost in translation And in reverse, you know things are lost in translation all the time, too For example in venezuela columbia and dominican republic Their most vulgar and insulting swear word is mama huevo literally translated means Your mother's balls, but man them is fighting words If you say them to someone you don't know in those three countries, it's the biggest insult There is mama huevo in the dr columbia in venezuela. It's never used by people in polite society

[25:33] It's their equivalent of calling someone a mofo You know what I mean yet. The english translation is so innocent. All right We're getting towards the end of the show now And I'd just like to mention to all you people out there who use wikipedia a lot I know I use it once in a while But as you probably know the editors are all woke and they cancel people and delete things that don't follow Their extremely biased liberal agenda, you know if you're listed on there and they don't like what you're saying They'll just smear the hell out of you. You're a bigot racist or conspiracy theorist Anyone who disagrees with the big pharma big government pandemic crap is a conspiracy theorist But you probably know that already The reason why i'm bringing this up is because a youtube just came out on july 14th And I assume it's going to get cancelled pretty soon, too It's a half-hour interview with larry sanger one of the original founders of wikipedia

[26:21] He says right off the bat in the interview. I no longer trust the very website. I created wikipedia He's afraid he too will be a victim of wikipedia's policies. How about that? He says they manipulate cancel edit and select the data They like to further their woke leftist agenda all the time So any of you listeners out there who put your full faith and trust in what you read on wikipedia man You ought to hear this interview. Just send me an email. They expect files at gmail.com and i'll send you the link Now as for me, for example If i'm watching an old movie and I want to look up one of the long dead stars or directors I'll check it out on wikipedia I mean they usually don't screw too much with the biography of a non-controversial dead guy or gal historical figure They do their dirty work on controversial people who are living and breathing in with current events like 9 11 the canady

[27:09] Assassination any deviation from the main street media line and you're a conspiracy theorist Meanwhile wikipedia is forever whitewashing people like the clinton's ovomit gates. Dr Falsy the biden family, etc, etc, but you knew that already, right? Problem is people have come to look at wikipedia like it's the internet version of the oxford dictionary And man, is that a dangerous assumption? You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b. Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com

[27:57] No spamos