Episode Summary
In this episode, Johnny Mueller explores the experiences of African American expats in Latin America, discussing the 'gringo advantage,' socio-economic challenges, and the complex dynamics between first-world black expats and local black populations. He also touches on financial considerations, the importance of choosing the right location, and the realities of expat life in the region.
Johnny highlights that while there are millions of African Latin Americans, they are rarely referred to as such. He explains that countries closer to the Pacific Ocean tend to have fewer black citizens, making it easier for African American expats to blend in and succeed. However, in countries bordering the Caribbean or Atlantic Ocean, African Americans may face socio-economic challenges and find it harder to integrate. These insights are not widely documented online and must be experienced firsthand.
He also discusses the complex dynamics between black expats from the first world and the local black populations in Latin American countries bordering the Caribbean or Atlantic Ocean. Local black populations often view first-world black expats as 'usurpers' due to their higher education, wealth, and cultural sophistication. Despite this, these expats contribute positively to the local economy by starting businesses and hiring locals. Local black women often dream of marrying first-world black expats as a way to escape poverty, while the reverse is less common due to cultural and socioeconomic differences.
Johnny further explores the social dynamics and perceptions that African American expats face in Latin America. Local black elites often view first-world black expats as outsiders, seeing them as smart and savvy invaders who have 'landed on their territory.' This leads to a mix of fear, trepidation, and animosity from the wealthy black upper-middle-class locals. Many local businessmen in Latin America see first-world expats as competitors and often perceive business as a zero-sum game, where the expat's success is seen as their loss. However, expats can still gain acceptance and social status, especially if they come from islands like Jamaica or the Caribbean, where they are often seen as more cultured, educated, and successful.
He also addresses the financial aspect of expat life, emphasizing that a $10,000 income in Latin America is equivalent to a $20,000 or $30,000 income in the first world. He advises expats to live like first-world individuals, even while keeping costs low by staying in private hotel rooms with a bath. Johnny notes that most expats come to Latin America with a small nest egg or savings of $5,000 to $20,000 and manage to live comfortably.
In another segment, Johnny discusses the challenges expats face when moving to Latin America, particularly regarding stereotypes and the importance of choosing the right location. He suggests that African Americans should consider countries with smaller black populations for a smoother transition, while those seeking to meet many black people should head to the Atlantic or Caribbean sides of Latin America. He also mentions that expats often start with a significant amount of money but quickly find themselves working for a living, often in jobs like bartending or restaurant work, earning between two and three hundred bucks a month. Expats can also work in call centers or English teacher jobs, earning between three to four hundred bucks a month.
Johnny highlights the challenges expats face when trying to earn a first-world salary in the third world. Even with desirable first-world skills, expats often struggle to earn more than a minimum wage. University teaching jobs in the first world do not translate to meaningful salaries in third-world universities. The only way to secure a first-world salary in the third world is through specific job ads in publications like Fortune magazine or The Wall Street Journal, which list professional jobs for foreign companies. However, these opportunities are rare, and most expats end up in corrupt social circles, often associated with embassy types and government officials, leading to a lifestyle that Johnny finds distasteful.
Finally, Johnny discusses the concept of 'bubble expats'—expatriates who live in a rarefied, isolated environment and are disconnected from the realities of the local population. These expats, often working in government or embassy roles, are described as living in a bubble, insulated from the street-level experiences of the country they reside in. Johnny contrasts them with 'earthier' expats who are more integrated into the local culture. He also hints at a future episode where he will discuss work permits for expats in the region.
Topics
African American expats in Latin America, Gringo advantage, Socio-economic challenges for African Americans in Latin America, Integration and success in Latin America, Black expats in Latin America, Socioeconomic dynamics, Cultural perceptions, Economic contributions, Romantic relationships, Social dynamics of African American expats in Latin America, Perceptions of first-world black expats by local black elites, Business competition and zero-sum game perception in Latin America
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:01:06 The Impact of Country Location on African American Expats in Latin America 00:02:09 A Real-World Example of African American Integration in Latin America 00:03:14 Recommendations for African American Expats in Latin America 00:05:04 The Perception of Black Expats in Latin America 00:06:11 Positive Contributions of Black Expats to the Local Economy 00:06:54 Romantic Dynamics and Aspirations of Local Black Women 00:08:59 Perceptions of First-World Black Expats as Invaders 00:09:11 Fear and Animosity Toward First-World Black Expats 00:09:26 Local Businessmen's Jealousy and Fear of First-World Expats 00:11:13 Cultural and Social Advantages of Caribbean Expats 00:13:24 Social Challenges for African American Expats in Latin America 00:14:22 Financial Considerations for Expat Relocation 00:17:54 Expats and Their Initial Financial Situation in Latin America 00:18:08 Expats' Transition from Working for the Man to Starting a Business 00:19:55 Expats' Lack of Experience in Running a Small Business 00:22:13 The Salary Challenge for Expats in the Third World 00:22:31 The Illusion of First-World Salaries in Third-World Universities 00:23:02 Finding First-World Jobs in the Third World 00:27:11 The Bubble Expats
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. I'm going to continue now with answering some of the emails that I've gotten over the last few weeks. And this one comes from Wendy. She says, she listened to one of my past shows where I discussed the treatment of African Americans down here in Latin America and she wants to know the best Latin American countries to relocate in, if you are an African American, coming from the first world of course.
[00:51] Speaking of that, I've never really heard of an African Latin American, just African American. How about you? Though to be technical about it, there are millions and millions of African Latin Americans down here. Though as far as I know, in my 20 years down here, I've never ever heard anyone refer to himself like that. Anyway, and you know, it does make a difference which country you want to come down to if you are an African American, though you still enjoy every bit of that gringo advantage I've been talking about, no matter which Latin American country you end up living in. And for those of you who might have forgotten what the gringo advantage is, it's where you automatically get two or three points added to your score on the 10 point scale just because you come from the land of plenty, the USA. But here's what I've noticed. Down here in Latin America, there are some countries that have virtually no pure black citizens. Of course, there may be a little black blood mixed in here and there, but you could go
[01:37] into a country on the Pacific side of Latin America, let's say El Salvador or Peru or Chile and you could go to any big or small town and walk around for a week and often almost never see a pure black person at all, unless he or she is a first worlder down on business or a first world tourist. Now, if a first world African American wanted to come down to one of those countries and settle, that old gringo advantage will be in full swing for you. However, I can tell you right now, if you're looking to make some African American friends or friends of African descent, you'd be hard pressed to find them in any quantity. And here's just a small example of what I'm talking about. A few years back, I was at an embassy party in Honduras, in Copán, which is the far western end of Honduras, on the border with Guatemala, far from the Atlantic Ocean, and practically all the American embassy people were there.
[02:23] I'd say maybe 75 and all. And guess what? There was only one African American person at that party. And later on, I found out he was the only black American attached to the American embassy down there. And that's about what you see throughout Latin America, especially in the business and diplomatic communities. It seems like there's quite a glass ceiling for blacks in the international community down here. The exception, of course, being the US military attachment to the US embassy. That's one place where there is no glass ceiling. There's always a melting pot in the American military. And this might surprise you, but here's how the color demographics work out in Latin America. The closer you get to the Pacific Ocean, the fewer blacks you'll find. And in fact, when you finally do hit the Pacific Ocean, there's almost no blacks at all. And in the odd chance that you might run into one, chances are he or she will be a first
[03:10] world tourist or a first world guy or gal down on business. Just like I said before. And actually, I do recommend that first world black expat wannabes come down to Latin America and for a few specific reasons I'll state in a second or two, I recommend to select the Latin American country closer to the Pacific side because from what I've observed, they seem to have no trouble at all blending in and shooting right to the top of the class in a hurry. In other words, the African Americans that I've met on the Pacific side all seem to be really enjoying themselves and every single one I've met has become a pretty good success in his or her own right. For some reason, they all seem to be doing a bit better on the Pacific side than if they are located in the Latin American countries that are bordering the Caribbean or the Atlantic Ocean, like Belize or Brazil or the Caribbean coast of Guatemala or Nicaragua or Venezuela
[03:56] or Panama. Because there's a strange socio-economic effect that goes on in those countries in regards to black foreigners that come in from first world countries and for that matter black foreigners who come in from Africa directly and from some Caribbean islands, like Jamaica or Dominican Republic or St. Kitts or Nevis, to name just a few. And I guarantee it's something you're not going to read about or even be able to search on the internet. You have to be down here and hear it from the people themselves. Now here's the problem and I've seen this time and time again. On the Caribbean side of Latin America, the average black citizens are very poor, much poorer than the average Latin blooded citizen from the same country, city or town. So in a first world, African American person arrives or even a black person from South Africa or Nigeria or the Dominican Republic or Jamaica.
[04:42] When they arrive in a Latin American country like Belize or Brazil or Nicaragua or Panama, those Latin American countries that border the Caribbean or the Atlantic Ocean, where there already is a substantial black population, albeit very poor black population, the locals tend to view these new black arrivals, these richer, much more educated, upscale cultured arrivals as usurpers. In fact, I've heard local blacks in Belize call Jamaicans and first world African Americans stuck up in classes. And though it's not justified at all, at first glance you can almost see why they feel that way. Because here's the thing that's obvious. Any black person that comes from a first world country, any place in Europe for example, or the United States, first of all they're going to be vastly more educated than the locals. Secondly, they're going to have a lot more money and culture and taste than the locals.
[05:31] They're going to know how to do business better than the locals. They're going to see opportunity better than the locals. They're going to live in a better house, a better neighborhood and they're going to have a nice car. And those are things that 95% of the local black population just doesn't have and never will unless they win the lottery. And you know that kind of thing breeds jealousy and discontent among the locals. And what I've heard from some blacks that I know in Belize personally, they say that foreign blacks who come down to live, especially first world ones from Europe and the United States, those foreigners have their noses stuck so high up in the air that they think their feces doesn't have an odor. If you know what I mean. But you know what, in reality, here's the real facts. Blacks that come down here, whether from the United States or from Jamaica or South Africa, they're actually helping out the local economy in a big way and setting a very good example for an uneducated public.
[06:18] Those foreigners are down here spending their time and their capital starting new businesses and hiring local people. But the local blacks still harbor these bad stereotypes behind closed doors, of course, because they'll never see anything nasty like that to your face. But the truth is the locals would like nothing better than to be close friends with or write on the coattails of any one of the first world blacks that comes down and settles in and makes a success of himself, which most do, by the way. And here's the other thing. It's nearly every local black woman's dream to hook up romantically with her sights on marriage to a first world African-American guy that settles down here because it's an instant path out of poverty. So there's that gringo advantage I'm always talking about working again, right? And of course, that works for the opposite sex, too. Every local black guy dreams of hooking up with a first world black expat because that's
[07:06] an easy way for him to get out of poverty, too. And you know, here's my own personal take on that. I've seen black first world guys come down here and hook up with some very nice and very beautiful local black girls and even marry them and have kids and have families and all that. And most of the time, everything seems to work out okay. But I've almost never seen it work in reverse. That is, when a common local black guy hooks up with a first world African-American woman expat who comes down, in that case, it just seems like there's too much of a socioeconomic and cultural gap for that to work out because down here in Latin America, it's a very macho society. And if you've got complaints about what you perceive as the macho society up in the first world, well, you ain't seen nothing yet. And by the way, when a first world African-American male comes down and hooks up with a black
[07:52] Latin American girl down here, I mean, romantically, of course, and generally leading up to marriage, it always seems that she adapts to his style of living and his style of life quite easily. But when a first world African-American woman hooks up with a local guy, he tries to maintain that very dominant position as king of the household. And that's always been the custom down here. The guy is king of his castle, even if he doesn't have a job himself, and the woman is the sole supporter of the family, which may be alright for the locals who take it for granted that that's the way it is. But that male king of the castle crap can cause a lot of problems for a strong-minded, successful first world woman who happens to hook up romantically with a local macho guy. So you can see the problem. But so far, I've only been talking about the poor and the middle class blacks down
[08:38] here in those countries that have a very large black population like Belize and Brazil. But when you're talking about the upper middle classes and the wealthy classes of blacks, well, that is a completely different story because they're cultured and educated just like the blacks in the first world. But there's still a bit of that jealousy and that animosity towards first world African-Americans who come down here as permanent expats. Again, they view black expats as usurpers, more or less smart and savvy invaders that have landed on their territory. So whether you know it or not, if you get in with that crowd, they're always a bit suspicious. So the wealthy blacks in upper middle classes view first world black expats with a mixture of fear, trepidation, and animosity. And the chances are you won't pick up on it because it won't be up front and in your face. But it's always there lurking behind the smile.
[09:25] And why do you think that is? Well, that's because if you look around town, nearly everyone who's got a modern, successful business came to the country as a first world foreigner. And when local businessmen see all these foreigners with their successful businesses, well, they're a bit jealous and a bit scared. And you know what? If I was a local who had a long standing mom and pop hardware store, and a first world guy moved into the neighborhood with all his business smarts, I'd be a bit scared too. And you know, it's not as if the black entrepreneurs and big wigs in a country won't accept you when you first come in. Sure, they will. And you'll get invited to all the parties. In fact, you'll probably be somewhat of a minor celebrity in town. And in time, you'll make a lot of friends with that crowd. Remember, you do have that gringo advantage working for you. But just remember this, there's an old saying in business, I like it when my friends do
[10:10] well, as long as they're not doing better than me. Anyway, there's certainly a lot of that going around in Latin America. And it's the same with black and Latino businessmen. And the problem is, the average businessmen in Latin America who aren't schooled at all in modern business techniques, much less customer service, well, nearly all of them have the idea that business is a zero-sum game. In other words, if you come down as a first world expat hotshot and open a business and you do well, which you probably will, the average Latin businessman thinks your gain is his loss. And what they don't realize is that business doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. You might come down and start a business that creates a brand new market, whereas the average Latin guy is worried about you opening a restaurant right next to his and stealing all this business. Oh, and I did mention the Jamaicans, didn't I, even though they're not from a first world
[10:58] country at all. But get this, a lot of Jamaicans immigrate from their country because it's poor and there's not much opportunity there. And if you know anything about Jamaica, you'll know it's almost all black and the people there have a kind of Jamaican British accent, which I don't know if you know this or not, seems to be charming to a lot of different girls from a lot of different countries all over the world, including Latin American girls. And what I've found is that native Latin Americans who are black don't like Jamaican men in general. And they're not shy to express that opinion, believe me, because it seems when a Jamaican guy comes to town, the local ladies seem to fall for him, just like white girls up in the States fall for guys with British accents. So around the Caribbean coast in Latin America, Jamaican guys have kind of a gringo advantage themselves, but only with the local women.
[11:44] And last time I was in Belize talking to some of the hot local women at a disco, they were all in agreement that Jamaican men were a class above the local guys and that they were real gentlemen and knew how to treat a lady. And you know what, these ladies said the very same thing about black expats coming from the Dominican Republic, Aruba, St. Kitts, the Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Curaçao, and Cuba too. You name an island in the Caribbean and any of the guys that came as expats from there were a-okay with them. The girl said that any of those guys was a cut above the local talent. And you know it doesn't take much to figure out why they feel that way. It's because any guy that comes from one of those islands as a tourist or an expat has to have some kind of resources. He's not going to be your average workaday guy making 200 to 300 bucks a month.
[12:30] Guys like that don't have the money or resources to take vacations off their home island, much less leave their home country, relocate, and start a business. So if most of these foreign visitors and expats from the islands have more than the average amount of money and resources, they're certainly much more educated than the average guy too. And therefore they're more cultured and knowledgeable about the world and they look and dress and speak a little bit better than the average guy too. Which makes a guy like that a pretty good catch for a woman now who's stuck in a poverty rut in a third world country, right? But back to my point regarding the jealousy and the animosity that many local businessmen harbored toward first worlders coming in as expats. Now normally I'd say, who cares? If you start a successful business and your competitors don't like you much, so what else is new? Well the thing is from what I understand, an African American first world expat always
[13:18] seems to find it just a little bit tougher socially in the parts of Latin America populated with a lot of blacks. At least at first, because of those first world stereotypes the locals have about you. And I'm sure that would be a great topic for a master's thesis now, wouldn't it? But take my word for it, if I was an African American, I'd go for the countries and cities that had a very small population of blacks. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but if you do that, the transition seems to be much easier. But however, if I had my heart set on meeting a lot of black people and having a lot of black friends, then well, you're going to end up on the Atlantic or the Caribbean side of Latin America. And that's all there is to it. And I know what I'm telling you is quite controversial, and I can't really prove any of it by pointing anything out. I've just told you in news articles or books, which by the way, is why it would be a good
[14:05] master's thesis now, wouldn't it? Anyway, as usual, I'm painting this subject with broad strokes and generalizations because that's what I do here on the expat files. So if you don't like my analysis, sue me, but please no death by a thousand emails, anything but that. Okay, so let's go to the next part of Wendy's email. In that part, she asks, should an expat relocate to this part of the world with a dependable income stream from the first world? Well, that would be ideal now, wouldn't it? If you had a nice income stream from the first world, like a social security check or a pension or a rich mommy or a daddy. Well, honestly, most permanent expats that I've met down here don't come down with any of those things. I found that the average expat comes down here with anywhere from five to $20,000, thinking that that could last anywhere from six months to a year.
[14:52] And they based that on how they lived up in the first world. And that's where most of them get it wrong. Because down here, when you're off the tourist track, you can easily make $10,000 last a year or even longer. And if you live like a backpacker, you can make it last two or even three years. But I never recommend that. I like to live like a first world person. And my minimum requirement, like I've said before, is that I always stay in a hotel with a private bath. I may be an ego snob, but I find it just intolerable to share a bath with people I don't know. I don't care if the guy who rented the room before me was Jabba the Hutt. As long as when I turn the key and go into that room, it's clean and I got a private bath, then all the world's okay with me. And you know what? I can always find a nice, clean room with a private bath for around $20 to $25 a night. Off the tourist trail, of course.
[15:39] And you know, at $25 a night, a room like that will cost $750 a month. But if you're smart, you'll never have to pay near that. You can always make a great deal with the front desk guy to pay by the month, as long as you pay in advance. And in that case, you'll be able to get it for half or less, normally around $350 to $400 a month. So you can see where I'm going with this. If you rent the place for six months and pay in advance, you probably can get the place for $250 or $300 a month. And I'm talking about nice little hotels now in nice sections of town. And that's just another example of how cheap it is to live down here. And remember, if you rent one of these little hotel rooms with a bath, you don't have to pay electricity or water or cable TV or internet service, because that's always provided. And better yet, a lot of these places give you free breakfast along with that. And I know you can negotiate that price down even farther on that hotel room if you knock
[16:27] off the breakfast. And the reason why I'm bringing up that hotel bit right now, well, that's because when an expat first gets down here, and he or she doesn't really know the area very well, it's good to hook up with a small hotel like that for a month or two or even more while you're getting your bearings and you're deciding just what you want to do once you've been down a while. You know, make it your base. Staying in a hotel like that for a month or two is a no-brainer. And in regards to Wendy's question about having an outside income source or not, the first thing you have to remember is that a $10,000 income in Latin America is like having a $20,000 or $30,000 income up in the first world. So any income you might have coming in from the first world, it's as if you'd made double or triple that kind of money when you're down here spending it. So down here, if you know how to do it, you can get double or triple the bang for your
[17:16] buck. If you do it my way outside the tourist areas, of course. Well how can I say that? Well, it's easy. For one thing, all the money that you make outside of the country comes in for free. There's no taxation. But that's a topic for a different show, so stay tuned. Now here's something you didn't know. Almost every single expat that I've ever met down here, and remember, the vast majority of these guys came down here in Latin America with no outside income source from the first world at all. They just came down with a tiny nest egg or some savings of anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 and they got started with that. Anyway, what you didn't know is that after six months or so, most of these expats didn't even run through that $5,000 to $20,000 that they brought down. They were already earning some money somehow down here, usually not big money, but they
[18:03] were working at some kind of job or they'd seen some kind of business opportunity already and were working towards that end. And if you're anything like me or expat Eddie, after about three or four months down here, after wandering around and observing just how badly Latin businessmen do things, you've got so many money-making ideas chalked away in your brain that naturally you'll have to whittle those prospects down to one or two, or you'll never get started on any of them. And believe me, after you're down here six months or so, it's a bit hard to make a decision like that. But in the meantime, as you're organizing yourself and get your ducks all lined up for whatever business or enterprise you're going to get into, you can always make a little money on the side, bartending or working at a restaurant, and that's easy enough. You just go down to the Zona Rosa or Zona Viva in any of the big cities, where the discos and restaurants and hotels are, and all the first world franchises like Starbucks and
[18:51] Applebee's and Friends and TGIFs, well, they're always willing to take on a gringo for bar and restaurant work. And that's where you have that gringo advantage working for you again, because they assume that you're hardworking, intelligent, and you're a go-getter. Even if you got the brains of Homer Simpson. But remember, if you pick up a job like that, you're only going to make between two and three hundred bucks a month. That's the going rate down here for that kind of work. It doesn't matter how first world you are, or if you have a PhD in physics from MIT. Though that gringo advantage will certainly help you get that job right. But personally, I think if you want to pick up a quick job to tide you over for a while, you should go for one of those call center jobs or those English teacher jobs that are all over the classified ads these days down here. But you're still only going to make from three to four hundred bucks a month. That's it. Though that's probably just about enough to pay your hotel rent for a month, which is
[19:40] what most first world expats eventually end up doing until they get their own ideas going for a business startup. Now the problem with expats and expat wannabes is many of them, when they were up in the first world, had regular salary jobs working for companies. Actually, I should say 90 to 95% of them had salary jobs working for big companies. In fact, it's the rare expat that had his own business up there in the first world, whether it was an accounting firm, a disco, a restaurant, a candle shop, a beauty parlor, or whatever. So the vast majority of expats who come down here to Latin America have no experience at all running a small business. The employment experience that they did have up in the first world was working for the man. And I'll tell you something, the expats I know that got into business down here, though they didn't show it, they were awful unsure inside because they'd never actually run a
[20:29] business before. I mean, how do you go from being an accountant at Johnson's Wax in Racine, Wisconsin, with your own secretary, a numbered parking spot, and a key to the executive washroom, to owning and operating a 100-acre biodiesel farm in Honduras? Well, some might say it takes a lot of guts. And that would certainly be true up in the first world, even if up there in Idaho, the government did give you a ton of subsidies. But the fact is, down here in Latin America, labor and land are so damn cheap compared to the first world, that there's tons of wiggle room. The fact is, you can make dozens of mistakes, each one of which could have buried you in a business up in the first world. But down here, if you make those kinds of mistakes, well, like I said, there's so much room for error that chances are you'll survive quite nicely, no matter how much you screw
[21:15] up at first. I mean, all you have to do is look around you and see how horribly run. The vast majority of these Latin American businesses are, yet they survive. And the fact is, they not only survive, but their owners have summer houses and drive late model SUVs. Go figure. Yet the vast majority of the businesses down here that are making it are perfect examples of what not to do in any business 101 textbook. But then there's that big problem I see with expats and expat wannabes, who've worked for the man all their life up in the first world, and decided to come down. They still feel like they have to work for the man somehow, and that's one huge obstacle they just have to get over. Because if you work for the man down here, you'd be awful lucky if you ever pulled down a thousand a month. And if you don't own your own business, a thousand a month is big money, believe me.
[22:02] And that's the golden dream of every average man down here, to make a thousand a month. But believe me, you don't have to settle for that, no way. Now I want all you expat wannabes to consider this. Even if you have a really desirable first world skill, well that doesn't matter, you're still in this marketplace, and you'd still be lucky to make a thousand bucks a month. Even if you're a hotshot first world animator or web designer, and a thousand bucks a month is about what a minimum wage McDonald's worker gets in the first world. Don't think that university teaching job that you have up in Cincinnati, that pays 50 grand a year, just because you have an MFA, is ever going to translate down here to any meaningful salary in one of their universities. Oh you'll qualify for a job alright at the highest level, only the highest level only pays five or six hundred bucks a month, even at a big exclusive private university.
[22:53] Now if you got big time first world credentials, the only way you're going to get a first world style salary down here, working for the man, is if you snag that job while you're up in the first world. And how you go about that is, you look in the back of Fortune magazine, or The Economist, or The New York Times, or The Wall Street Journal, and you'll see in the back pages, by the classified ads and the job wanted ads, a few dozen openings for overseas jobs in third world countries. And they're almost always professional jobs for analysts, marketers, systems designers, chemists, geologists, oil workers, take a look and you'll see what I mean. And those jobs are always with foreign divisions of first world companies, like Bayer, Pfizer, Siemens, Quaker Oats, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Caterpillar Tractor. And of course you'll see some teaching jobs thrown in there too, but they don't pay first
[23:41] world salaries, sorry. So anyway, if you snag a job through one of those ads, while you're still up in the first world and making your plans to come down, well, you will get a first world salary when you do come down here, plus a lot of benefits, and a first world contract. But to tell you the truth, in my 20 years down here, I never met an expat who actually got a job that way. But I know those jobs exist and they must be hiring, because you see those job ads every week. Now I have met expats who are professionals on contract down here with big international companies and I never run into these guys on the street, only at expat bars and embassy parties, naturally. And actually, one of my best friends from the first world came down here on a contract just like that from an oil company. They hired him as a geologist and he was making 50 or 60 grand a year back 10 or 12 years ago, which was great money for down in Latin America.
[24:29] In fact, he was living like an absolute king. But the problem was, he couldn't save any of his money. He ended up spending it all, because he hung around in the high rent district with his embassy friends. You see, that's what happens when you come down here on a contract with a big first world company. That company always has big ties to the American embassy. And in the case of my buddy, he was very close to the country's cabinet minister in the Department of Energy and Mines, because it was that cabinet minister who gave out all the oil and mineral exploration contracts. And of course, a sleazy, under qualified government bureaucrat in his position is most responsive to the first world oil and mineral exploration company that pays the most bribes and under the table kickbacks. It turned out to be a very incestuous relationship for my friend and his transnational mining
[25:18] corporation. But it happens all the time. In this case, he had a big first world mining company sucking up to a corrupt government official who gives out the favors and all of it sanctioned by certain functionaries in the US embassy, because they want a US firm to get the contracts or at least a transnational company that they have a good working relationship with. In other words, not Chinese or Russian. So my friend did have a first world salary and a first world contract, but he really isn't living the expat kind of life that I recommend. And even though he's married to a beautiful Latin girl, he's stuck in a social circuit that I can't stomach, hanging out with corrupt government buffoons, pompous embassy types, and traveling in caravans with bodyguards. And his beautiful wife, who used to be a $300 a month secretary by the way, she's one of those girls that can be seen at Gold's Gym and the high end shopping centers, dressed
[26:05] in the latest and greatest New York fashions with her two bodyguards in tow, of course. She made that transition from $300 a month secretary to first world multiple credit card shopaholic in one easy step, believe me. And because that kind of garbage grates on me, especially when it's shoved in my face by my own friend's wife, and because I can be a little too honest sometimes, well, as you might imagine, we're not the greatest of friends anymore. And that story's not unusual. That's a typical story of what happens to a lot of people. When they sign a contract up in the first world with a big transnational and end up coming down to Latin America and working on a first world style salary. From day one, they slip right in with that crowd I just talked about, the corrupt politicians and the embassy types. So there's a little sample of the other side of expat life.
[26:51] But thankfully it's the rare expat who gets caught up in that kind of stuff. Though it's obvious that some people actually thrive on it. And though they make first world salaries and live like kings and queens, they're very much isolated from what's happening on the street level down here and never really get to know the people or the country. And I doubt if they want to. And the rest of us more earthy expats actually have a name for them. We call them the bubble expats because they live in a rarefied little bubble. And they pal around with all the despicable government and embassy types whose not so hidden agenda is to keep the status quo going in these countries and milk them like a third world cow. Oh, and by the way, in a future show, I'll be talking about how to get permission to work down here and whether you need to have a work permit at all. You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, coming to you each
[27:41] week from somewhere south of the border. And don't forget you can email me on anything at all about Latin America, The Expat Files at gmail.com. Once again, The Expat Files at gmail.com. See you next time on Spamos.