#1328 – Episode 1328: Cultural Norms, Water Systems, and Expat Life

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 out 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 Talk about culture clashes now I don't know how this topic got brought up but at my last expat insider seminar which finished a couple weeks ago now Somehow the subject came up. Maybe I brought it up

[00:46] Concerning certain things you do and don't do if you're dating latina women and many many expats come down here You know and they end up with a latina partner And vice versa gringo ladies coming down here and ending up with Latino partners So when you talk about things like that people are all ears Especially the newbie gringos and expats. Anyway, they're looking for any insights and tips they can Anyway at one of our seminar dinners, I do remember saying to a little group of my expat seminar people You know when you're going out with a Latin lady Be prepared when you're going to one of the family get-togethers or parties or When you're meeting up with her friends somewhere, I said get prepared for the following eventuality

[01:36] I said don't be surprised if before you walk through that door even earlier when you're in the car Right before you walk into that party. She says something like this now She'll say it nicely, but she'll still make the point of saying something like please Johnny Dave or whoever you are don't mention so-and-so or don't bring up this or that topic and You'll oblige you'll say okay I won't or maybe you'll forget or have too much to drink and then you will then of course She'll be in the doghouse. For example. I've had quite a few latina girlfriends say to me Johnny, please When we get in there, don't mention my sister Julia the puta don't stare at the tumor on grandma's neck Don't ask about uncle Juan. He's still in prison

[02:23] Don't ask my brother about the tattoos on his face Don't pour any drinks for uncle Jorge and no jokes about religion or incest, please Oh, yeah, and remember this if you want to be persona non grata in a hurry at any largely Latino party Just start telling Pope and pedophilia jokes and mention in passing that you're an atheist I'm telling you they will back away No one wants to be around a guy that soon to be struck by lightning So anyway when I brought up the fact that latinas will prep you before you walk into a party or get together Remember, I was sitting around with a group of seminar people then I asked the group has anything like that ever happened to you You know with your girlfriends and wives up in the States and guess what every last one of the seminar guys raise their hands So right then and there we established the fact that ladies of both gringa and latina persuasion

[03:14] And perhaps it's just not those two cultures. It's universally true. Who knows? Anyway, we've determined that at least gringas and latinas will routinely give us guys a heads up on what we can and cannot talk about At certain social get-togethers. They've dragged us to and you know until then I didn't give it much thought Then I started wondering Are guys guilty of that too do guys sometimes prep their wives and girlfriends About things they should and should not say before they go into a party That's when I asked my little seminar group or I should say the guys in my seminar group if they were guilty of that, too And guess what? None of them would admit to it in fact in my own case I thought and I thought about it and I could never

[04:01] Remember a single time when I prepped a girlfriend like that, of course, you know as a simple act of diplomacy There are lots of things you don't bring up in front of certain people. You just know better take your mother For example, how many times have you self-censored in front of your mom? Speaking of moms and let's include sisters here, too You know when I was living back in Chicago many years ago I remember getting that same pre-party pep talk from my own mother and sisters, you know So and so is gonna be at the party So please don't bring up this or mention that seems to be a female thing You know warning us guys not to stick our foot in our mouths or not to make asses of ourselves Or maybe it's just self-preservation on the ladies part Ladies don't want their guys to look foolish or come off badly because it's a reflection on their taste inmates

[04:50] So then is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Well, maybe in the old days it stopped a lot of needless fighting killing and punch-ups You know when guys carried sidearms and any little incident could spark a duel. I don't know What do you think by the way does your better half give you instructions before entering a social event? Would you even admit it? All right moving on. Let's take an email. This one's from Rob He says hey Johnny with all your construction experience and drinking water experience. I'm thinking you're the man to ask these questions a Little background. I'm one of your listeners down here in El Salvador And I've just recently hit water in my well, and I'm nearing completion on two houses One house will be for the caretakers and the other one temporarily for my wife and I Meanwhile, it's time to bring up the water

[05:36] Here's the facts my well is 26 meters deep And then there's an 80 meter elevation gain over about 300 meters distance from the well to the house He says I've had two separate companies come out and recommend a two horsepower pump and a motor by Franklin Electric What are your thoughts on that? All right me Johnny here first things first. Yeah, man. You've got a long run It's like three football fields between your well head and your house So a two horsepower pump seems about right now if you go online you can find a well pump calculator It'll tell you the size of the pump you need for the length and depth of your well Called a well pump sizing calculator, and if you check it out You'll find with your numbers your dad's they're recommending a one and a half to two horsepower pump

[06:24] So you're right in line Alright for the rest of this email Rob goes out to say my main question though is regarding water pipes themselves And those cistern tanks He says most folks here are using a black two-inch tubing laid above ground for water supply Those are flexible black plastic tubes. My big concern there is nano plastics Don't want to be drinking those things any thoughts on that Johnny and If that is a problem, is there a reasonably priced alternative? Maybe then he says that brings up the same question regarding those big ubiquitous Sisters those black or tan plastic cisterns people generally put on top their houses to store water Are there nano plastic concerns with those things and again if so are there alternatives?

[07:13] He says of course, I'm thinking water filtration may be the final solution What are your thoughts on the best filtration set up to rid us of those plastics and any other nasties if any? Thanks for any advice you can give on the subject signed Rob living the expat life in El Salvador Well, thanks for that Rob and all good questions, especially regarding all that nano plastic news We're seeing in the big journals and even in the mainstream media these days must be that George Soros and Bill Gates Don't own any big plastic tubing or plastic bottle companies Because if they did I kind of feel we wouldn't be hearing anything about nano plastics in the news Because if Gates and Soros were in that business, it would hurt their bottom line Well, Rob as far as everyone using those black plastic two-inch pipes in those long long water line runs

[08:04] That's about the best and least expensive option you're gonna find But do remember any time water comes in contact with plastic of any kind we're talking about nano plastics leeching out Though I wouldn't worry too much about it because you're gonna want to filter out the nano plastics and other Impurities in your kitchen before you drink the stuff. We'll get to that Funny how no one ever asks about those white PVC plastic pipes that run through your house and walls You know your pressurized water lines nano plastics are always leeching out of those things, too Now think about the rubber and plastic in your garden hoses, you know when those things get hot laying in the yard all day Remember when you were a kid and took a drink and it tasted like plastic. Yuck. Those were nano plastics So think about especially the PVC pipes in your hot water lines in your home

[08:53] those are the yellowish colored PVC tubes, you know The warmer a plastic pipe gets the more nano plastics leech out then of course you mentioned those big cisterns that sit on top The roof they're all made out of black plastic. Well 99% of them Anyway, almost all of them are high-density polyethylene plastic though I've seen a few metal ones even aluminum ones in some ways. That's much worse than plastic now Believe me, you don't want water to be stored in aluminum aluminum leeches into water, too That's why I'm so against cooking with aluminum pots and pans though practically all but the very very high-end restaurants do so I'm sure you know that the human body that uses no aluminum at all In fact, it's a toxin that accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. You knew that too, right?

[09:41] That should make you think twice about restaurant binging, huh? By the way, Rob about those cisterns which are generally big black plastic tanks that sit on people's roofs You know people with dough and taste don't want those things sitting on top their roofs because they look ugly for one thing That's why in nicer neighborhoods You won't see any of those around though people will still have cisterns sometimes really big cisterns, but they're invisible They'll install them below ground level and they won't be made out of plastic. They'll be made out of concrete and concrete block The problem is water will seep through concrete and concrete block So the inside of that kind of cistern is painted with an impermeable thick kind of paint that's specific For aligning cisterns you guessed it It's a petroleum product and therefore made out of plastic. So again, you've got that nano plastic leeching problem

[10:33] Not to worry though. Just don't drink that water or cook with it not right out of the tap though Go ahead and bathe wash your dishes shower with it do the laundry wash the dog wash the car, etc Because you know nano plastics as much as we don't like them They don't penetrate through your skin your body doesn't absorb them You just don't want to breathe them in or swallow them. So Rob just get yourself a nice very good quality countertop water purifier or under the counter purifier and For you and your area and El Salvador just go to one of the big hardware stores and buy an echo filter In Spanish echo filter. Oh, they're used throughout Latin America and many parts of the world In fact in Central America many restaurants and hotels use them too

[11:19] Because they're so damn cheap around 50 to 75 bucks That's for the basic stripped-down model But the purification process the element that does all the work is the same in all models One of those echo filters last a family of four two or three years to until you have to change out the main filter Element for I think it's 35 bucks by the way I wouldn't buy their cheapest unit which they sell to the poor indigenous folks because its main reservoir Where the purified water lands collects is a plastic bucket Meaning some contact with plastic nano particles again, though minimal not that great My advice get one of the hundred percent ceramic models still gonna be under a hundred bucks

[12:04] Bottom line get a unit that's got no plastic parts at all By the way If you want to picture one of those things send me an email the expat files at gmail.com Now if you want to buy a more rugged and high-end water purified made out of a hundred percent stainless steel and should Theoretically last forever. You can order a Birkenfield unit from Amazon Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com and I'll send you a picture of that one, too The difference is those things cost around 250 bucks and you'll have to change out the ceramic filters every year or so, too And when you change about it, it'll cost you around 75 bucks again. I repeat I make no money on this stuff at all I'm not a distributor or seller or collector of clicks now both of these systems the echo filter and

[12:50] Birkenfield system will eliminate all your nano plastics and your bacteria microbes and organics and pesticides, too By the way, I'm talking about a Birkenfield system made in the UK It's pretty much the same thing as a Berkey you've heard of those though They're around 400 bucks or so their names are similar and they look almost exactly like Same filter methods though pretty much similar in all other respects except price So then what's the difference? Berkey makes their own filters and Birkenfield buys their filters from a company called Dalton They make some of the best filters in the world Dalton They lead the world in filtering water for manufacturing processes and for food now up to this point We've been talking about countertop gravity feed water purification systems

[13:39] They're great, but they're gravity feed so they operate quite slowly It could take a couple hours to filter a gallon or two Which is plenty for a family of four as long as you keep the reservoir filled that way you could produce Six or even eight gallons of highly filtered water each day now if you want a steady Never-ending flow of purified water Go ahead and install an under counter water purifier. That's directly connected to your cold water supply With that you install an extra little faucet alongside your regular kitchen faucet by the way Your under counter system uses the same filtration system as does the Birkenfield if you're a do-it-yourselfer and want to know how to Assemble one of those yourself by getting all the parts on Amazon

[14:25] That'll cost you under a hundred bucks to just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And I'll send you the detailed plans for the setup It's the exact system I use and every time I change locations every time I move I take that system with me Takes me about 20 minutes to set it up or break it down I also have one of those countertop stainless steel gravity-fed Birkenfield systems, too So then why do I have both countertop and under the counter purifier? Because I'm slightly obsessive about certain things and into overkill Everybody who knows me. Well will vouch for that One last thing people ask me all the time about reverse osmosis water purification systems Hey, the concepts good science behind them excellent

[15:12] I've had a couple of myself, but I don't recommend them unless you're a really avid do-it-yourselfer Why because they're pretty complicated and finicky That's why I like the echo filter and the Birkenfield system. So well, they're gravity feed You don't need any power You could take them out to the woods or to a jungle set them up by a river and instantly start producing pure water Whereas a reverse osmosis system uses a very delicate Plastic membrane so talk about nano plastics. What about that membrane? I haven't seen any studies on it, but you know, the water does go through a membrane a plastic membrane I'd like to see some nano plastic data on that. Anyway One of the big reasons I quit using reverse osmosis myself is because any chlorine in your water will destroy that membrane

[16:00] And you won't even know how much it's being degraded chlorine eats microscopic holes right through it and You know how heavily chlorinated some people's water can be of course That's why every reverse osmosis system comes with a pre filter. That's made out of a carbon cartridge Carbon, which is one of the only things that absorbs and removes chlorine Good idea, right? Great idea since chlorine ruins those reverse osmosis membranes But you know those carbon filters can only take out so much chlorine and you never know When it's past its useful life if you taste or smell chlorine in your tap water That means there's a lot of chlorine in it and your carbon pre filter has to take all that out The question is when do you change that carbon filter? Most people never do

[16:46] That's the problem with reverse osmosis systems They work great for the first year or two when you first get them But i've found it unless you're a very diligent do-it-yourselfer People just don't keep up on the replacement parts You've got to change those carbon filters regularly and most people don't you're supposed to regularly change your furnace filters, too But most people don't and what does regularly mean every six months every year every three months? Well, it depends on conditions what conditions and who determines them you get it. Can you see the problem? I say stick with the gravity feed units or the under counter systems Then there's no guessing and very low maintenance Oh and the other big problem with using reverse osmosis here in latin america is that most water systems here municipal and such

[17:34] Just go crazy with the chlorine. Sometimes it's so damn strong your house smells of chlorine and some days and weeks There's absolutely no smell or taste of chlorine at all details details It is after all the third world The question is are you going to trust your nice expensive reverse osmosis water purification system on a water supply? That could be absolutely drenched in chlorine one day and no chlorine at all the next And on those days where there's a massive dose of chlorine can your carbon filters handle the excess chlorine? Can they keep up with it because if they can't I mean there is a limit And just a little bit of chlorine passes through Your reverse osmosis membrane and oil be destroyed or at least somewhat degraded and how much is too much Well, you'll never know

[18:19] All right. Let's move on to another email. This one's from mark. He says. Hi johnny I finally convinced my wife to visit guadamala off the gringo tourist trail You are so correct that people seem so happy to see us and always smile and say buenos dias unfailingly He says sure as expected there were dogs there was garbage and mad max traffic, but also Very happy people plus beautiful vegetables and fruit mini markets as well as cheap buses and beer For all the chaos johnny. He says it all seems to work. You know what he says I could live here Anyway, johnny. Thank you so much for your work. I love your show signed mark Yes, he says I met a gringo named joe at the gym who's lived in guadamala for 30 years

[19:07] We're meeting him for beers this afternoon at a tortilla. That's a hard one to say for a gringo, you know tortilla Gotta try rolling those hours, man Anyways, as I'm meeting up with this guy joe for beers this afternoon Can you believe it? He says six q that's the local funny money. That's under a buck for a 16 ounce beer meanwhile listener chris writes in about a university of massachusetts medical school and new york university rutgers study On tattoos basically saying researchers are hoping that people will do some research about where to get tattoos After a recent study found a link between body art and hepatitis c The correlation is very strong

[19:53] The study found that people with the hepatitis v virus were four times more likely to report having a tattoo Even when other major risk factors were taken into account And although the study did not go so far as to prove direct cause and effect The study concludes that tattooing in and of itself poses a risk for hep v that can lay dormant for many many years As far as the actual stats researchers found that 34 percent of people with hepatitis c had a tattoo Compared to 12 percent of people in the non tattoo group All right chris. Thanks for that And i'd hazard to guess that the amount of ink you have In other words the amount of total hours you've been under the needle

[20:40] Is a pretty good indicator of the likelihood that you'll have hepatitis c as well Though not good news for the gangbanger crowd. It certainly does make the case for karma or not. Hmm By the way, you long time listeners might remember a show I did many many years ago talking about another clinical university study concerning tattoos whose abstract stated that people with tattoos Had small but consistently higher white blood cell counts and what do white blood cells do? They fight off infection And doctors when looking for infection check white blood cell counts when they find they're slightly elevated That means a person's immune system is on alert because of an irritant or a low grade infection of some sort

[21:27] Now admittedly that study claimed that the white blood cell counts were only slightly elevated Even so you have to know that's not a good thing one researcher put it. It's like having a sliver. That's never removed Or ladies, you know, there's having a pierced ear With a slight reaction to the earring you're using You just don't use that earring anymore, right? Well, what if you kept on using it forever? It won't kill you but it's not good for you either Those are the kinds of things that'll just slightly raise your white blood cell count Which means your body is constantly fighting off a low grade infection All right moving on here's something I bet you didn't know If you come down to remove the latin america and you're gonna buy a car you'll find there are still lots of stick shift models around

[22:14] As for me i've bought quite a few cars here in latin america with stick shifts I found it is a bit of an extra help if you're in a country like guanamalo lots of mountains and valleys But i'm hearing from expat wannabes and guanabes. It's ever so hard to buy a new manual transmission model up in the states One guy steve sent me an article that says less than one percent of new models sold in the united states are stick shift Compared to 1980 sales where 35 of passenger vehicles and pickup trucks were stick shift According to the usepa It's really only sports cars off the road truck suvs and a handful of small pickup truck models that still Come equipped with manual transmissions meaning clutches and stick shift and who knew it but in europe now

[23:01] Volkswagen is dropping all of its manual clutch vehicles And the rest of european car manufacturers are going to do so also to comply they say with eu regulations to reduce emissions Now to me that sounds bogus Why would a car with a stick shift not comply with eu regulations on emission reduction? Then again, it might be because a lot of sports cars like ferraris and lamborghinis have stick shifts And if you have a car like that, you'll want to race And downshifting which is cool to do and sounds tremendous too, especially around corners You know what? I mean if you drive a stick shift downshifting puts a brake on your engine and is noticeably less fuel efficient In other words, there's lots of incomplete combustion going on when you're downshifting

[23:48] But who knows that's just my guess why tree huggers want to ban stick shifts Anyway, when I read this little article he gave me I dug into my email pile Remembering I got an email from a guy george in fact from minnesota who says he will drive nothing But stick shift cars and trucks till the day he dies In fact, he said he was going to retire next year and he wanted to drive his toyota high lux stick shift pickup Down to el salvador when he gets his plan b going and I said great idea He was wondering if it was safe to load it all up with the stuff He needed to bring down and I warned him that might not be such a good idea when driving through mexico But if he got through there, all right He'd have smooth sailing through guatemala and not to el salvador after he gets through mexico No one will bother him though. I did tell him he'd have to pay the import tax on the vehicle within three months

[24:38] In order to get it registered and licensed. Anyway, here's what he said dear johnny. I'm in minnesota I have a toyota high lux stick shift from 1998 And here's what I like about it It's fast sleek and nobody ever asks me to borrow it because 90 of the people I know Don't know how to drive stick He said I don't think anyone learns how to drive stick these days I try to take my ex-wife out in my truck to learn a lost cause And I ran out of patience and my brother had to teach her Had to replace a clutch plate too because she burnt it out in the learning process Oh and johnny one more thing I like about a clutch is that you get a really fast takeoff You've heard the term drop the clutch Yeah, and those old high school and college days. That's how we'd get rubber. Oh and another thing johnny

[25:26] I have an azuzu trooper. You remember those things four speed clutch It's the only other car I have and my two teenage kids hate it You'll never guess why because when you're driving a stick It's hard to look at your phone and text at the same time You got to have one hand on the stick shift at all times, especially in the city Hmm. All right me johnny here. Yeah, you don't ever thought of that What a great idea if you have teenage kids make sure all the cars in your family are stick shift that way you'll be sure They're not overtly texting and driving. They'll be forced to pull over to do that. You hope so Anyway, then george says in his email when I was a younger guy I remember going to car lots and seeing that the new cars were always cheaper if they were stick shift They'd have the same model with automatic and manual transmission and the manual transmission model always three four even five hundred dollars cheaper

[26:19] He says that was my incentive To buy stick shifts in the early days was simply an economic thing though flashing forward to more modern times I've found the best thing about having a stick shift in the 21st century is that it's sort of an anti-theft device Simply because it seems only boomers know how to drive them car thieves are young men gen y and zers boomers are over 50 and old people do not steal cars, which is a good thing He says because according to stats. I just looked up 60 percent of boomer males can still remember how to drive a stick shift And 20 percent of gen xers can drive a stick but less than five percent of generation y and zers know how

[27:04] And as mentioned he says 99 percent of car thieves are gen y and zers Which means your own best protection against car theft is having a stick shift. Otherwise known as a standard or mechanical transmission Signed george from minnesota Well george, thanks for that good info By the way, the only flaw in your argument is that once you get down here in latin america There's this thing called lag time. That means everyone down here knows how to drive a stick the bad boys, too 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