Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller explores the complexities of expat life in Latin America, touching on technology, class divides, and the realities of poverty. He begins by discussing the concept of 'manana time' and the initial challenges expats faced with unreliable internet and cell phone service in the region. Johnny reflects on the technological transition in Latin America, noting that reliable internet and cell phone service became widespread only around 2015, while the upper classes adopted modern technology much earlier. He shares personal anecdotes about his experiences as a radio host in Latin America, highlighting the class divide and the early adoption of technology by the wealthy.
Johnny then discusses the evolution of internet access in Latin America and its impact on his radio show. He notes that while the government's internet issues have improved, the process of interacting with government buildings remains slow. He recalls how his radio show, which offered prizes to listeners who answered quiz questions correctly, became dominated by wealthy individuals with good internet access, who could look up answers on Google. Johnny highlights the class divide in internet access, noting that in Latin America, internet quality varied significantly by neighborhood, unlike in the United States where access was more equitable. He also explains the prevalence of pay-as-you-go (Ricarga) plans, which allow for anonymous internet and phone service without formal contracts or personal information.
In a personal reflection, Johnny discusses the importance of using disposable email addresses to avoid spam and marketing. He recommends using a service like Start Mail, which allows users to create temporary email addresses that can be deleted once they're no longer needed. He emphasizes that free internet services often sell user data, and even if a company claims not to, there's a loophole where data might be passed to another entity. Johnny then shifts to a personal anecdote about his childhood perception of wealth, contrasting it with the current generation's view of poverty. He shares a story about his father's childhood, where food was a luxury, and how this influenced his own appreciation for food. He concludes by reflecting on how today's youth are often addicted to technology and don't understand the concept of poverty.
Johnny recounts his experiences with public housing in the 1970s, describing how residents had access to basic amenities like AC, hot and cold water, and free utilities, despite the neighborhood being controlled by gangs. He contrasts this with his later experiences in Latin America, where he encountered extreme poverty, such as Cheppy, a maintenance worker who had never had electricity in his home. Johnny argues that the poverty in Latin America is far more severe than what he experienced in the U.S., and he criticizes the portrayal of Latin American public health care systems as being high quality, stating that they are often underfunded and unreliable.
Finally, Johnny discusses the challenges of the national health care systems in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador, highlighting the increasing debt, shortages of medicines, and lack of medical professionals. He contrasts these issues with the information provided by American retirement publications like AARP and International Living, which are often more accessible to expats. He also shifts focus to municipal water supplies in Latin America, emphasizing the importance of having a backup plan, such as a cistern or private well, due to unreliable municipal water services. He shares personal experiences and examples from local news articles to illustrate these points.
Episode Notes
Johnny Mueller dives into the challenges of expat life in Latin America, from unreliable internet to the stark class divides in technology adoption. He shares personal stories and insights on the evolution of internet access, pay-as-you-go plans, and the realities of poverty in the region. This episode also critiques the portrayal of public health care systems and highlights the importance of backup plans for expats.
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Related guides: Healthcare in Latin America · Cost of Living in Latin America · Residency in Latin America · Renting and Buying Property
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Topics
Expat life in Latin America, Technology adoption in Latin America, Class divide in Latin America, Reliable internet and cell phone service in Latin America, Internet access in Latin America, Class divide in technology access, Evolution of internet and cell phone technology, Pay-as-you-go (Ricarga) plans, Johnny Mueller's radio show and its impact, Email privacy, Disposable email services, Data privacy and free internet services
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:14 Introduction to the Podcast and Host 00:00:26 Overview of the Podcast Content 00:00:32 Discussion of 'Manana Time' and Reliability Issues 00:00:52 Reflection on Technological Transition in Latin America 00:02:25 Johnny's Experience as a Radio Host in Latin America 00:03:51 Class Divide and Technology Adoption in Latin America 00:05:15 Reliable Internet and Cell Phone Service in Latin America 00:05:50 Government Internet Access Improvements 00:05:55 Slow Government Processes Despite Improved Internet 00:06:01 Johnny's Radio Show and Internet Evolution 00:06:05 Time Period of Johnny's Radio Show 00:06:08 Improvement of Internet Over Time 00:06:13 Impact of Internet on Johnny's Show 00:06:16 Johnny's Radio Show and Prize Distribution 00:06:18 Daily Prizes and Quiz Format 00:11:42 Disposable Email Addresses and Start Mail 00:13:28 Personal Anecdote on Wealth Perception 00:14:43 Family History and Food as a Luxury 00:16:51 Johnny's Experience with Public Housing in the 1970s 00:18:15 Johnny's Contrast Between U.S. and Latin American Poverty 00:21:49 Johnny's Critique of Latin American Public Health Care Systems 00:22:18 Introduction to National Health Care Systems in Latin America 00:23:33 Challenges in the National Health Care System 00:24:25 Information Sources for Expats 00:24:27 Transition to Municipal Water Supply Issues 00:25:29 Solutions for Municipal Water Supply Issues 00:27:17 Importance of Having a Backup Plan
Transcript
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 expat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started speaking of manana time and lag time When gringles and expats first get down here to Latin America and start talking about that Manana time that is they're hitting a face with it on day one usually Most of us think it's kind of enduring kind of quaint
[00:47] when you first hear about it until you actually move down here that is and For people like me who lived down here during the transition of technology. I mean reliable internet and cell phones and such I remember in the late 90s my engineering buddies up in the states telling me about the internet How great it was how you could chat with people instantly look up things. They were talking about mp3's My nerd friends were telling me about how you can download and stream music on sites like limewire and pirate torrent sites Now I only heard about that stuff from my nerd buddies up in the states because down here. It wasn't happening yet even cell phone service here in Latin America back in the 90s really sucked and I'd say the internet didn't really take off in a big way here in Latin America. That is it wasn't everywhere until about
[01:37] 2005 Just about the time the first iPhones came into existence and still the poor and middle-class Latin Americans did not have Internet in their homes yet, unless they had a kid going to the university and he had a computer at home I remember seeing huge computer labs at the public universities because so many kids just didn't have computers too expensive And if you didn't have a computer at home, you didn't need internet right and even up to around the year 2010 those internet cafes were booming. There was one on every corner used to use them a lot myself Why because they're perfectly anonymous and yet still see him occasionally in the small towns and out in the boonies Come on. When's the last time you used an internet cafe? I used to use them all the time. I used to live in them Now you longtime listeners may have heard me speak about this before the fact that in the year
[02:25] 2000 I got a radio gig here in Latin America and for the next eight years I was constantly there gringo in the morning or the gringo at drive time at night I was pretty popular hired and fired by a number of radio stations In fact, I was working for one big radio station group owned by get this Koreans who spoke no English Was really great for me because my program was in English and I could say some really outrageous things and no one would call me on It anyway back then from about the year 2000 to 2008 When I was all over the place on the radio Yeah better believe even if 80% of the population did not have internet or good internet at home or in their phones all The studios in the radio stations sure did back then it was the disc jockeys at radio stations that first started downloading
[03:11] Songs off the internet while the general public here in Latin America bought all their music on CDs mostly pirated CDs For a buck a disc you'd see those guys in every street corner selling music and movie CDs now at that time from about the year 2000 to 2010 I Learned a lot of things about the class divide here in Latin America because all my buddies who played my rock band They were Latino rich kids. They all had blackberries flat-screen TVs and internet before any of the middle and lower middle classes did I Realized quickly that the upper middle classes and rich kids who just loved everything gringo would adopt those first world habits instantly Anything they wanted their parents would buy for them. It was kind of sickening really hmm sound familiar
[03:58] So it seemed like when I hung with those guys and went over to their houses It was like I was living up in the first world back in Chicago again There was rich kid Latino 20 somethings in my music group Had everything you could imagine and that was before Amazon because their parents went back and forth to my jammy shopping So when I went to their houses It was almost like being back in Chicago except for the fact that they had bodyguards and their parents had maids and gardeners and beach houses Yep, when America was hooked on blackberries all my Latin American rich kid buddies had blackberries, too And when the iPhone hit in 2008 I think it was they all got iPhones too and back then from around I'd say 2000 to 2010 when the internet and cell phone service were extremely spotty that is for the masses anyway
[04:43] However for the upper classes for the upper middle classes in my rich kid buddies It was no problem because they had consistently better and more solid service all the time because they lived in wealthy neighborhoods And if you've ever been to Latin America, you know, the infrastructure is always better in wealthy neighborhoods Now I don't know when the internet got rock-solid for you and yours up in the states That is rock-solid for the average slug. They tell me it was between around 1995 and 99 That really didn't happen down here in Latin America till about 2015 about eight years ago Before that it was very spotted Except again have you happen to work at a big company and of course in high-ed neighborhoods Hello till about eight years ago 2015 even government buildings had spotty and even terrible internet connection
[05:31] I can't tell you how many times back then when I'd be in a government building for whatever You'd walk up to the window when it was your turn the person would say sorry But we can't process or print your whatever you stood in line for today because the internet's down come back in a couple hours Man, I can't tell you how many times I felt like punching a government slug in the face Well, at least these days the government rarely has internet problems anymore Though it still is a repulsive and painfully slow process when you have to visit a government building that will never change But I'll tell you a strange thing happened to me when I was doing those live radio shows from around 2000 to 2008 as The internet got better and better little by little you might laugh at this or maybe you won't believe it But it kind of messed up one of my favorite gigs You see during those eight years when I was doing live radio
[06:18] I'd give out a really good prize or two from my sponsors every single day I'd do it by having a little on-air quiz Every day, I'd have one. I'd ask a question on the air could be about anything politics music science history and I'd take callers and whoever got the question, right? Would win free restaurant dinners free booze Free lawn service for a month house cleaning for a month free bags and sacks of coffee Even free weekends at resorts and hotels really good stuff too because my advertisers knew my demographic had money Gringos working transnational jobs in Latin America and high-hand Latinos who knew English rather Well, that worked out fine for the first couple of years was very popular Then right around 2005 something strange happened some of the same people started winning over and over again
[07:07] Well, I couldn't have that So I changed the rules a winner had to be on the second or third caller though a little by little something strange started happening With the callers the callers and the answers they gave in the early days Almost no one knew the answer and they'd call in just to hear their voice on the radio And they'd shoot the breeze with me for a bit. Give me the wrong answer or give it a good shot Entertaining for the listeners, but not a win for the caller It was a lot of fun pretty good radio But soon enough like around 2005 seemed like every caller had the right answer Turns out all the rich kids were calling in because they had good internet and they just look it up on Google as you know If you've got a good solid internet connection You could Google anything even way back when in the early aunts when we didn't even know that Google was evil yet In fact back then I can remember the transition to Google before that
[07:55] It was ask Jeeves and Bing remember that so here's what happened and it wasn't fair at all First of all my show is in English so my listeners consisted of odd gringos working here in Latin America like at embassies and stuff and Transnational companies like Walmart and Costco, but mostly the listeners were bilingual Latino and Latina adults That means upscale wealthy ones pure 100% gringle wannabes who'd learned their English had expensive helicopter schools and their bilingual high school and college kids who were going to helicopter schools, too Turns out very few middle-class or lower middle-class Latinos and Latinas listened to my program because they just didn't have enough English to understand What was going on and even though some public schools and inexpensive private schools?
[08:41] Claim to be bilingual and teach the kids English and though they advertise as such in their promotional materials to me It's a failed system. I've had many Latinos who've gone to those schools. Tell me that too It just doesn't work out Well at all when your English teacher is a Latino and Spanish is his first language Turns out that the Latino and Latina kids that actually learn good English down here Enough so that they have no problem conversing with you or listening to my radio program You'll find nearly every one of them had a person in the home who spoke English quite a bit Like maybe a gringo parent or much more likely they went to an expensive bilingual helicopter school and were taught English By a real live gringo whose first language is English who is hired to work at that school for just that purpose
[09:28] So anyway by the time around 2005 came around all the wealthy kids had good solid internet connections and they were winning all the prizes on my show Which wasn't all that fair because they were spoiled rich kids who could have anything they wanted anyway Anyway, I just wanted to point out that down here in Latin America as opposed to up in the States The class system is alive and well as you well know up by you Everyone had the same grade and quality of internet rich and poor all at the same time And years ago if you were in a parking lot or elevator or going under a bridge and your cell phone cut out Same thing happened to a rich or poor guy standing in the same spot But that's not how it works down here in Latin America down here in the early days of the internet and cell phones
[10:14] It was all about which neighborhood you lived in better neighborhoods had better coverage more cell towers, etc And if you don't believe it just remember About 80% of all the internet and telephone plans here in Latin America are called Ricarga plans or pay-as-you-go plans in other words plans without a formal contract because for one thing to have a formal contract with an internet or cell phone company you have To have a bank account a credit rating and a formal job not a gray market job for cash off the books That's why a good third of the Latin American adult population does not qualify Now for me and lots and lots of ex passing ring goes we like to have a low profile Keep our footprints and paws off the grid as much as possible That's why we love those pay-as-you-go programs those Ricarga programs
[11:03] Because you could just buy a sim chip for five bucks get a phone number an internet connection without even using your own name All you need is an email address to get it activated You know that drill so many companies ask for an email address so you can click a link and activate it It's a cash 22 if you want a low profile You don't want to give them the email address you use for all your personal correspondence and such that would be stupid Because as you realize every time you give away your email address, they're gonna use it for marketing You're gonna get spam and crap to get around that you give them a disposable email address You can do that by getting a start mail account. Then you could create an Unlimited amount of email addresses that can disappear anytime you want them to like for example when I signed up for Spotify to get Joe
[11:50] Rogan's show they asked for an email address to activate it. So I went to my start mail account and I created an email address something like Spotify one two three four asterisk That way I know that any kind of crap or spam that comes through with that email address on it Spotify one two three four asterisk. I know that Spotify bundled me up and sold me to someone Then and start mail. I just click a box and make that email disappear forever After all you don't need it anymore. You just needed it once to click that link to activate that Spotify account, man I'll tell you that start mail Alias email feature is one of the greatest inventions in the tech world But I digress as usual By the way, I don't make a dime for saying that start mail doesn't even know I'm mentioning it and I don't care either
[12:39] I'm just here to tell you about the good the bad the ugly and the great Though of course if you want that service you have to pay for it start mail say think 50 bucks a year or something I know I know everyone wants something for nothing. They want it for free. I want stuff for free, too But remember if it's free and it's on the internet the product they're selling is you and your debts No matter what their little disclaimer is they'll never sell collect or disperse your dad. That's complete bullshit There's really no way to prove they didn't collect and sell your debts There's a loophole, you know, maybe they didn't sell them at all They just passed them to another entity that collects debts in exchange for yours you get it. Nothing was sold It was just an exchange Hmm assholes Speaking of poor or what it means to be poor man. I'll tell you the definitions all over the place
[13:26] I remember in my 20s my 20s I felt rich when I paid my bills with cash at the end of the month I even felt rich and happy when I looked at the dashboard of my ten-year-old car and saw that I had a half a tank of Gas or maybe even a quarter. I felt rich if I could buy Kleenex and have a couple of spare rolls of toilet paper In my 20s. I felt rich if I looked in my fridge and there was real meat in there cold cuts hot dogs and processed meat Didn't count and man. It took me a long time probably way into my 40s Before I finally got to a point where I could buy what I wanted to eat and not feel guilty about it That is when I could buy something at the grocery store and not think about the price How about you? In fact, I'll never forget the story. My dad told me a long long time ago He said when he proposed to my mother. He said there would be just one rule in the house
[14:15] We'll have meat on the table every day and my mother said sure That's the way it was at her house every day Of course, she came from a big farm and they had way too much of everything In fact, my dad used to joke sometimes I think it wasn't a joke He said the first time my mother invited him to the family farm for Sunday dinner And he saw the unlimited amounts of fantastic food. He said I'm gonna marry that woman So then you might ask why was my dad so opinionated about food? Well, it turns out his dad my grandfather was married three times his first two wives died on him My dad had eight brothers and sisters nine total now the second lady who died my grandmother was my dad's mom She had three boys and one girl then my grandfather remarried wife number three and that third wife did not like my dad and the other
[15:03] Kids because that weren't hers and so my dad says they got served different meals Her kids got served the good stuff the meat the milk the cream the butter and he and his brothers and sisters from the second Marriage got mostly bread and cereal and thin and crappy soup. He said Soup that was often so clear and transparent. You could see right through it to the bottom of the bowl The only time he remembers they had decent meat was on Sunday when his dad was home for dinner Turns out his dad my grandpa was a duel-and-die maker who worked two different jobs and was rarely home when the kids were around It's stepped on Sunday So naturally when my dad and his brothers and sisters grew up enough to get the hell out of the house They had a little bit of an obsession for food and things like meat on the table, man It's hard to believe it wasn't so long ago different world back then though
[15:51] I'll bet some of your parents and grandparents have stories like that But kids today addicted to their cell phones they whine and pout about the stupidest things they don't know the first thing about it being deprived or poor and The so-called poor people in Europe the US and Canada these days I know it's on PC to say and it's a cancelable offense, but they don't know what poor is either You know on my first summer off between high school and my first year of engineering school I worked a job on the dead dog crew on the Chicago Street Department You longtime listeners may have heard me tell that story a long time ago You might wonder or maybe I haven't who picks up all those dead dogs cats and deer on the road They just don't disappear by themselves though. They get vaporized by getting hit over and over again. They don't disappear
[16:39] Well, there's a crew that does that I was on that crew for a whole summer I also remember distinctly going to the Chicago housing projects because they're public property too And we'd get a call about dead dogs there It would be yours truly that showed up with a shovel and a heavy-duty plastic bag or two now remember This is back in the 70s and every floor and those housing projects was owned by a different gang and you had to pay a toll To a gang member to use the elevator and those places had something like 30 or 40 floors Now inside of those public housing apartments everyone had AC hot and cold running water a shower a tub washing machine and dryer kitchen fridge stove central heat Tenants had free medical free food food stamps and such free transportation
[17:27] TV in every room free schools. I'll be at terrible schools paid utilities But the neighborhood of course was deadly now until I came down to Latin America That's what I thought poverty was like those poor people living in those housing project rats Kookarotches graffiti and gang members everywhere By the way when we show up in our Street Department dump truck to pick up a dead dog Those gang guys mined in the elevators were glad to see us Because you know dead dogs get putrid after a couple of days and we were the antidote So we never got haskeled at all. In fact, the doors were flung wide open for us Anyway, that to me was the definition of poor until I got to Latin America That's why when someone up in the States who's never been to the third world tries to tell me about this poor guy Or that poor neighborhood. I'd really like to straighten them out, but it's not worth it
[18:15] I'd be wasting my breath because if you want to see poor you really have to come down here to the third world Don't tell me about poor unless you've been down here. Take for example my longtime maintenance guy, Cheppy He had a steady job with me as my maintenance guy and gardener for years The guy never missed a day and I'll never forget one day. He asked me for a Tuesday off I'll never forget this that was maybe eight years ago. I Said sure be my guest take two days off He was rather apologetic about it, too He said yeah for me and my family. It's a big day tomorrow Tuesday I have to be there. He said I said are you celebrating something? He said yeah, we'll celebrate Tomorrow's the day the electric company comes and installs electricity in my house and man I just stood there you could have knocked me over with a pussy willow all that time
[19:05] He'd been working for me all those years and he never had electricity in his house He never complained or mentioned it either of course that meant he had no light bulbs or TV a refrigerator or microwave Though later he told me he would often borrow electricity from his cousin who lived in the house next door He'd run an extension court But he said that wasn't always the case because he often was not on good terms for this cousin Now once only once I was at Cheppy's house I was doing a little construction project at the house and I had some cement blocks left over in two by four studs and Cheppy asked me if he could buy him and if I could deduct a little bit from his pay every week And I said nah just take him and I loaded up the station wagon a few times We took it to his house was a little neighborhood about 20 minutes away
[19:53] All identical cinder black little houses with tin roofs all of them cooking with wood No one had hot water and they had cold water about eight hours a day Definitely no AC no washing machines or dryers. In fact, most of the houses didn't even have glass in the windows They just had a kind of a thick linen cloth for drapes now This might sound like a cliche, but the people were smiling and happy Unlike those poor people American style living in the Chicago housing projects I remember those sour and pissed off looks as if every new day was its own sort of torture and maybe it was too Yep, I believe it was Moral of that story Well, let's just say if I had sat Cheppy down and told him what it's like to be poor in the US About the AC the TVs the refrigerator of the free health care
[20:41] Transportation central heating on and on that the poorest of the poor have entitlements and they get them Well, I guess Cheppy would think I was either lying or that God had pulled a pretty mean trick on him All right, speaking of free or almost free health care here in Latin America You know, I can't help but get irritated every time I see some kind of article usually in AARP International living or any of the other expat rags and publications Pushing the idea that you could come down to certain Latin American countries like Colombia Ecuador and Costa Rica and others Sign up as a participant in their national health care That is public health care system and receive a first-class quality care In other words, they're telling you that in certain Latin American countries again Like Ecuador Colombia and Costa Rica and a few others you can get on the national health care system the public health care system
[21:32] They're saying then you don't have to shell out for private health care insurance That in itself is a big draw for many expat gringos who are paying huge monthly premiums with gigantic five and ten thousand dollar deductibles in private insurance plans up in the states Don't believe it don't believe what they're telling you about the public National health care systems here in Latin America sure every four or five years during an election year The ruling party might pump a ton of money into the national health care system and make it solvent again Because they know that sweaty masses who vote have very short memories But please don't set your sights on moving to a Latin American country based on their national health care system That's stupid yet. I still see first-world articles touting that kind of thing all the time
[22:18] You've probably heard those glowing reviews about the national health care system in Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador, too Meanwhile, you've got boots on the ground articles like this one coming out of big Latin American news outlets like el mercurio It says and I'll paraphrase us the debt for Ecuador's national health care system has been increasing since 2009 currently it's in debt about nine hundred million dollars since 2021 just two years ago about 800 million of that debt included debts from previous administrations along with an acute shortage of medicines since 2022 when outside auditors discovered the hospitals were stocked with less than 35% of the needed medicines and less than five percent of
[23:06] Needed and required medicines at certain locations. Are you getting this less than five percent of the required and needed medicines? However, a recent audit as of May 2023 reports that certain public hospitals have 78% of the needed and required medicines and 35% of the required and needed medicines are available in 48 of the national health care dispensaries Meanwhile, it says medical professionals do not want to work for the national health care system Hmm. I wonder why maybe it's because they have to bring their own medicine It says they much prefer working in private clinics and hospitals because of that. There's a shortage of around 2,000 professionals in the nation's national health care facilities
[23:54] It says on july 1st 2023 there have been posted over a thousand job listings in the national health care system Hmm. So who are you gonna believe? american retirement rags like aarp and international living Or articles coming out in spanish language newspapers in said countries Hmm. The thing is though retired people and seniors in the states are going to read international living and aarp before they ever Pick up a local spanish language newspaper That might happen, but probably never All right, moving on remember in the last show i was talking about Municipal water supplies and why you have to really be careful if you're moving or buying a place That's hooked up to a municipal or city water supply I mentioned if you are hooked up to a municipal supply
[24:42] You're gonna need a big ass cistern because a lot of those municipal supplies are only on 8 10 or 12 hours a day The other thing though is if you have a house in the city that's hooked up to the municipal water supply You could still you know, if you're dissatisfied with your municipal water hookup Call in a well digger and they can put in a private well for your house Last time I checked in central america. Anyway, guadamala honduras panama El Salvador that could run you three to five thousand bucks But well worth it pun intended And if you're wondering about permits for such a thing Because up in the states you could never get away with that Not in the city limits anyway, unless you lived way out in the boonies Then maybe you could pull it off but forget about it if you own a house in the city You're going to be hooked up to municipal supply whether you like it or not
[25:29] But in latin america, all you do is call the well company up and they handle everything Now about the necessary well digging permits somehow they're always connected They have a sweetheart deal or two going with the city and no one i've ever talked to has had a problem Of course we're talking about if you own your own home and have a big yard or garden where they can dig that well If you own an apartment or a townhouse forget about it However, the point is you should have a plan B when you're on municipal water, for example in one of my most recent houses I had the roof redone so that I could reroute all the rainwater to a big cistern So I had a big supply as a plan B in case of emergency and in the two years I had that thing in place. I never had to use it, but it was there nevertheless just in case you never know Now just to show you once again how bad municipal water supplies can be i'm reading from el macudio again titled the article
[26:18] And i'll translate in condenses Failure in midaflores leaves 47 sectors without water service It says about 5 000 families have been affected by the lack of or intermittent water service in 47 sectors The municipal water complaints which started seven months ago have intensified in the last month Recent inspections have shown the problem is due to at least six broken or cracked underground pipes Now pay attention to this it says maria varonic polo manager of the etap municipal water service says that From the damage which dates back Seven years has worsened meanwhile. It says since november 2022 about six months ago
[27:04] Those 47 affected sectors are being served by three rotating water tankers circulating in and out of those affected neighborhoods Hmm. Well, that's nice, huh? Are you getting this? I repeat if you're on municipal water have a plan b easy enough If you own the place get a big cistern divert and collect your rain water or get a well And if you're renting well, make sure your place has a big cistern If not your plan b would be thinking about moving to a place that does 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
[27:52] 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