#1400 – The Expat Files S1400: 14 Years, 1400 Episodes, and the Challenges of Living Abroad

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

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started Alright two things before we get rolling here number one. This is kind of a red-letter day It's my one thousand four hundredth show, but who's counting let's do some cypher in here That's two shows a week and a couple of weeks for vacation and being lost it in the jungle with no internet

[00:50] Well, what do you know that works out to 14 years on the air doing this show the podcast the expat files living in Latin America, you know, this is the longest running continuous podcast from overseas and Definitely the longest running continuous podcast focusing on the theme of expats Just thought I'd bring that up because someone recently mentioned that to me I don't much keep track of that stuff and I never never go back and we listen to a show But sometimes you know when I screw up or say something really stupid people will point it out and there's really nothing I can do About it. By the way, my trusty microphone preamp and mixer It's been on the job for 14 years. So I can't complain but all things must pass and I've noticed some distortion creeping in Which means it's on its last legs and starting to go to shit

[01:39] I ordered a new one and for now I am using my portable mic Which I'm sure you can tell is sort of scratchy and tinny and shitty But it'll do in a pinch and if that isn't annoying enough, you're probably gonna hear some noise today I've got some contractor over here busting up the walls Oh, and by the way, one of the telltale ways you can tell a guys from Chicago is by the way He or she pronounces certain words sometimes with me though slip through to now you just heard me use the word probably Well, I'll tell you on the streets of Chicago when you talk to regular guys, they won't say probably they'll say probably They'll skip one of the pubs and the word probably Now, of course if you've got a mother who's an English professor like mine Every time you say probably you'll get your knuckles whacked

[02:24] So you only skip the bub when you're talking to your neighborhood buddies So anyway, there are lots of Chicago wisms words pronounced slightly different telltale signs One is from the Windy City by the way I could be anywhere in Latin America talking to a gringo or a Latino people say where you from and I say Chicago They'll say ah the Windy City in Spanish I see you dad the viento and when it's a Latino, you know trying to impress me They're a cut above average and believe me they are if they know that but I'll tell you what gets them every time when I say Chicago got that name not because of the wind it got that name because of the hot air the wind Emanating out of the mouths of windbag politicians and you know that always gets a laugh. It's an icebreaker It's also true and it does sort of separate the men from the boys to educated Latinos from uneducated

[03:11] The people who actually read from those who watch tick-tock and Netflix Anyway, so I've got a contractor busting up the walls. And why do you think that is? What do you think? He's repairing or working on right now? Why is it so urgent? He do it right in the middle of me doing a show take a guess What do you think is the first thing that usually fails in any Latin American house? Well, if he guessed a plumbing problem, you'd be right either a water leak or a drain pipe clog or backup Speaking of certain kinds of plumbing problems you'll run into well here's a topic we haven't spoken about before when you live in a residential tower or run an Airbnb in a residential tower and There's a water leak somewhere or you see some big stain on the ceiling. Not a good sign, right? Well, let me tell you folks that's when the blame game comes because you want to have that fixed, right?

[04:00] Who wants water dripping into their kitchen or on their living room furniture? So then what do you do? Well first you got to determine is it your leak or is it coming from the floor above you or the floor above them or the Floor above them or all the way up to the roof more importantly who's gonna pay for it and what plumber do you call? Because you know every big building like residential tower has its unique problems and there's a plumber out there Who knows him someone who's been called back and forth many times to fix various things in that building So then who is that guy and how do you find him? Maybe it's a simple problem and any plumber will do well Obviously if you're not living on the top floor if you're living down on one of the other floors Maybe you've got eight or ten or twelve or sixteen or twenty two floors, you know, they come in all sizes Here's the thing the supply lines the plumbing tubes within your building that are pressurized, you know

[04:48] You're hot and cold water lines When there's leaking one of those you usually can find it pretty quickly You can isolate it to a given floor then apartment then particular wall Sometimes it's a bigger problem though when a common drain pipe is leaking When those things leak they could seep and ooze for months before you ever notice now drain pipes or gray water Pipes or waste pipes aren't under pressure at all but they carry all the nasty drainage from sinks and toilets and such and The question always is then if it's a common pipe Let's say you've got an eight-story building and the drain pipe is broken or damaged or cracked on the sixth floor That means if you don't fix that leak in time, eventually it'll seep down all the way to the main floor

[05:33] The first level doing lots of internal damage along the way now a decent plumber will be able to find the spot in a hurry Problem is who pays for it? Suppose for example, you've gone away on vacation you come back two weeks later and there's a big old water spot on your wall Drywalls buckling paints flaking. Hope you don't have drywall By the way, if you've got a newer building you might though thankfully down here in Latin America They've only just started using that stuff in a big way. That is you see It's become all the fashion in the past three or four years for people to put a drywall Drop ceiling in bedrooms living rooms and dining rooms so they can run some of those hidden LED Flexible strip lights of various colors, you know for indirect lighting

[06:18] Yeah, I admit it looks cool if they're using white light if they use green or blue or red or blinking lights Good look more like a disco or a whorehouse. But guess what if there's a leak that drywall is gonna wick it up like a sponge Anyway, it seems like every new or light new apartment or house I walk into these days has drop drywall ceilings with sort of a boxed-in perimeter where they've got that hidden indirect lighting So when there's a leak of any kind they're just asking for trouble now under that of course is solid cement and plaster Because the main construction technique down here the decent construction technique is block and cement and rebar But as mentioned to dress up their ceilings people are having a lot of drywall put in now I'm not saying it doesn't look nice and have a nice lighting and visual effect

[07:05] And it would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that down here in Latin America They don't know how to handle leaks There are poorly designed flat roofs everywhere and even if they've got a roof That's nice new and sealed properly during the rainy season. You've got that rain pounding and driving pretty hard often at an angle You know, it just doesn't come straight down all the time It can drive hard into your house at an angle often hitting the window so hard You can't even see through them and man, I'll tell you when you're walking to a person's house and you see drapes They're not just there to block the Sun. I mean that was the original tent. There is a secondary purpose They're there to hide a multitude of bad construction errors Like not setting a window in its frame properly. There are so many bad or improper caulk jobs down here You know, you have to caulk around your windows, but you know details details. This is Latin America

[07:54] You think they call it the third world for nothing? Sometimes even in brand new houses You'll be in a room looking out the window and you'll notice an ugly gray line a water stain mark at the lower corners of The window frame where a little water lines been trickling down for who knows how long yeah I know I know windows are supposed to be sealed and cocked against the concrete window opening in any event when you're living in a residential tower that question always is once you've done the repair who's Gonna pay for it. It's like getting into a multiple car accident Who's fault is it who's gonna pay or who's gonna pay most? Because technically if there's damage or a leak in a common pipe that serves a lot of different people on a lot of different floors Well, then it should be paid through the general maintenance pool. That's why you pay your maintenance every month, right?

[08:39] Well, the problem is what if it affects only two people for example The guy above you springs a leak and now your apartments flooded Good luck getting the homeowners association or the junta directiva as they're called down here homeowners associations are junta directiva I'm sure you've heard the word junta before using a negative context like when people talk about guerrilla warfare again It's la junta directiva, but actually it just means an organized group of people Anyway, if you're ever in that situation, and you will be eventually if you live in a residential tower I'm talking about noticing a leak that's coming from the guy upstairs Generally, the best thing to do is don't even report it to the junta directiva the homeowners association Just pay the plumber yourself who needs to point the finger stir up a hornet's nest

[09:27] No need man labor costs down here are so cheap You could have a plumber work all day in your house eight hours And he might charge a 50 or 60 bucks on the outside a hundred I mean if he's up to his elbows and crap in the states. What's a plumber get an hour? Well, I just looked it up plumbers in the states are getting from 50 to 200 bucks an hour depending on which city you live in So put it this way basically here in Latin America You could get a plumber to work for you for an entire day for less than what a US plumber charges for one hour So yes, there are still some very big advantages to living down here in Latin America However, if you live on the gringo tourist trail, well got a little story there You know a friend of mine in Mexico just lost his cleaning lady. He had her for four or five years He doesn't know the whole story. Maybe she was being extorted who knows she took off with her husband to sneak into the United States

[10:18] and that nice Anyway, my gringo buddy was living slightly off the gringo tourist trail And he was paying his cleaning lady about 18 bucks and eight hour day around two bucks an hour or less So now he's short help now. He didn't know any other cleaning ladies. So he started asking around well soon enough he ran into a gringo he kind of knew a guy who lived in a gringo wise community about five miles away So he asked this guy if he'd had any leads on cleaning ladies and he said yeah Why not hire my own cleaning lady? She only works a couple days a week for me He said she lost a client and has two days free each week now Then he heard the bad news The guy told him the going rate for cleaning ladies in his residential complex was five to seven bucks an hour

[11:03] The guy inquiring said you're kidding and all the while have been paying mine only two bucks The guy explained then when he moved in he asked the owner of the complex Belgian guy for a lead on a dependable honest cleaning lady and and she showed up and asked for five bucks an hour And he thought that's reasonable But just a couple of miles outside that little touristy area the cleaning ladies make two bucks an hour So how do you reconcile that? It's called the gringo gouge. Oh, and if you want to know another way workers might gouge you down here Suppose a plumber or electrician comes by does some repair work You know, they always have to run to the hardware store for something or other sometimes two or three times during a job I know whenever I do a plumbing or electrical job

[11:49] I'm back and forth of the hardware store, too. Well, the gringo gouge comes in For example, when the plumber says I need $20 to go over to the hardware store and buy some parts Well, of course, you're gonna let him do that. He says I'll bring back the receipt. Don't worry Well, he takes off and comes back a half hour later gives you the receipt and you get maybe three bucks back And of course, he's got a little bag full of parts. So you trust him now The thing is if you don't know anything about plumbing or electricity How do you know he bought the right parts or is he stocking up for himself because that's what they'll do They'll stock up for themselves. Your plumber will buy a big tube of caulk that'll use on three or four jobs Not only yours he'll buy a couple of ten foot lengths of PVC tube He'll use a short length on yours and the rest he'll have saved for another job And of course that PVC cement that's expensive stuff these days

[12:36] you know it comes in a lot of sizes you could buy a tiny little jar for two bucks or a 50 and what your plumber most likely will do is she'll buy maybe a five dollar ten of that stuff Ten percent of which will get used in your job and the rest he'll use for another job So in other words and believe me, I see this happen all the time plumbers and electricians will buy shit to stock their own supply They'll walk in with a bag of supplies give you the receipt and you won't check it Why should you especially if you don't know dick about plumbing or electrical repairs? So what are you supposed to do about it? Well every time that's happened to me. I know exactly what they're buying I don't like it when they overbuy, but I figure I'm getting such a great deal on labor I'm not gonna get in an argument about it then again some workers are Extremely trustworthy not a lot, but some but take it from me when they go to the hardware store

[13:24] They're almost always padding the bill. So is it stealing well in a way, but Remember what we were talking about on a previous show about trust societal trust In other words how much you up in the first world trust your neighbors versus the way Latin Americans trust their neighbors That's one of the reasons it's so easy to gouge your gringo why do you think Latin America such a low-trust society because most everyone's living on the edge and That's the gouge when they can get away with it is almost expected and by the way tolerated Like for example a while back expat Eddie told me he caught a cement contractor pad in the bill Buy an extra sacks of cement that never ended up at Eddie's job Eddie checked the receipt the fact Tuda 12 sacks of cement only 10 ended up at Eddie's job and when he called out the cement contractor

[14:12] He said oh they must have made a mistake at the hardware store Fair enough till later on the day Eddie walked his dog out to the front curb where the guy had his beat-up pickup truck And he saw two sacks of cement in the back He called the guy over pointed it out and get this the contractor Just shrugged his shoulders and smiled like okay you caught me as if it was a game Yeah, caught me. I'll do better next time now by right said he said he should have fired the guy But he didn't because he did good work And that's all that he was really looking for a guy to show up on time every day and do good work Now I know what this might sound like to you expat gonna be some wannabes You're thinking is it really worth going down to Latin America and putting up with all that crap all those little things That'll drive you nuts well again. You have to look at the bigger picture

[15:00] There's just so much more to it so much more to like and love here in Latin America You just have to get some boots on the ground, and I'm not talking about Puerto Vallarta or Cancun or Costa Rica either Now let's take an email from Missy. She says Johnny long time fan here I just wanted to get this off my chest since you mentioned solar power in your last show She says I'm two classes short of my master's degree in sustainability from the number one sustainability program in the US and Over the course of my time. I've been disillusioned with sustainable practices I know that solar is good in a pinch But I wish as a society we would talk more about the issues that solar and in turn batteries create Before going into my program Johnny. I was pro green everything

[15:46] I even voted for a green party candidate in a national election She says after being open to the program. I see it's all a scam Green energy is not green energy and causes more harm than good in One of my courses a man was celebrating having an all-electric solar-powered van that he lived in I asked How he felt about children mining for the lithium to make the batteries, and I was shunned by the whole class for asking It's like they just want to ignore the raping of the natural world for the emotional stability of the global north She says my classmates and instructors seem to gloss over the issue of manufacturing and just talk about how it's emission free She says the real answer is nuclear. I never thought I'd hurt myself saying that this is coming from someone who was raised to be a staunch

[16:34] anti-nuclear person But no one wants to talk about this because of the issues that happened in the 80s in the nuclear plants But here in 2024 guests who now has the rights to the new nuclear power plant in the US Not US citizens, but Microsoft Who are planning on reopening the three-mile island for data center electricity that would be AI in my class? We're told the lies that wind solar water geothermal etc are the way to go But they never talk about the downsides the downsides are just glossed over in a manner that feels like well We will overcome and that in the end the end justifies the means The sad part Johnny is that people who like electric seem to forget that electricity is created mostly by using coal

[17:23] And this coal is not Charles Dickens's coal, but 2024 coal, which is very clean and efficient She says my classmates also don't seem to care about forests and farmland being converted into hideous Solar panel farms that break and cause natural disasters with the flora and fauna She says the army has a solar farm for Fort Carson in Colorado Which aims to provide energy to around 500 homes in the area with 12 acres of solar panels in? 2018 they were destroyed because of hail it had to be repaired using tax dollars that took two years So all of this Johnny just to say that I like solar in a pinch I wish there was more talk on the cons of green energy as those cons are quite profound

[18:09] She says I used to believe in climate change too, but the deeper I got into it the more I realized that it's a hoax used to control the masses think about how they say whales are being killed in the ocean because wind is blamed on climate change and Bad weather based on climate change because of cloud seeding the whole green narrative is one used to promote corporate greed and put a squeeze on private autonomy as A side note Johnny you talk about Ecuador my au pair is from Ecuador, and she's counting the days She has left here in the states before going back Meanwhile she tells me and my husband all the time how she loves America and how Ecuador is full of crime and beyond saving She says that on the streets there. She was purposely attacked by dogs Attacked for her money and also shot in the butt in another robbery

[18:57] She's 26 and sold flowers and hot food with her mother missy says sorry. I rented Johnny I just hope that people understand. What's really happening with green washing Alright missy. Thanks for that lot to unravel there You know I'm fully on board with you on most of that stuff in fact I remember something that made me sort of sick once when I was taking my seminar crew through Antigua Guatemala Manufacturing plant called echo filter. They make some very good filters their water filters, and they're pretty much completely energy self-sufficient with solar panels and LP gas and when I asked the owner how much LP gas they use in here He says it doesn't matter by the way It's for the big ovens that kills that cook the pots that become the water filters The guts of the filter actually look like big ceramic plant pots anyway. I said what do you mean? It doesn't matter

[19:48] He said oh he says a few years back We were contacted by the US Department of Agrit culture or interior whatever they told us because we were mostly Self-contained and used all local products and raw materials from the area. We were eligible for energy credits He says your outfit generates x amount of positive credits each year and big international Polluting companies will buy your energy credits in other words They could sell their clean credits to dirty polluters So polluters could continue to pollute as long as they buy credits and when he told me that I thought man There's something wrong with this setup Let me explain that again if you use solar energy or renewable energy you get positive credits Then you sell them for cash to a dirty company like Microsoft Microsoft yep, that's what he told me right now or then and when I was talking to him

[20:37] He said Bill Gates and Microsoft were buying all their credits all of them Which allowed this water filter company to buy more land expand build a new building increase output without taking a bank loan I thought man something's wrong with that system. It's evil whoever created that it's got an evil mind Sounds like a sorrows or world economic forum kind of thing Anyway, I'm thinking that was like eight years ago already when I had that conversation So missy, I'm totally on board with you thinking that the green movement is totally a scam I'm with you on that. I'm also with you on the nuclear thing I'm with you on the wind farm thing too that's turned out to be a really bad move The blades kill millions of birds and the sounds they make the whales are disoriented by it However, one point to make about the solar panels, you know, if you notice just recently

[21:24] I'd say in the past three to five years solar panels have been rated for hail damage So when you buy them you actually get a guaranteed hail rating all the top highly rated panels these days have both a hail and Wind rating all the good ones the ones worth buying certify their solar panels to withstand hail up to one inch diameter Hitting a panel at 50 miles an hour Now, of course, it'll be that oddball hail storm where the hails as big as golf balls are even bigger In that case every car parked on the streets gonna get its windshield busted and its paint job ruined Because cars can't take hail that big either now I do remember once as a kid looking out the window watching hail come down in Chicago At the time I remember saying to my brother look there's biggest golf balls

[22:11] Lots of cars in the neighborhood filed an insurance claim for damage Which by the way brings me to the fact that you can get an insurance rider on your solar panels To cover a one in twenty thirty or even fifty year occurrence like that So you could have it in your homeowners insurance policy By the way down here in Latin America where they've installed millions of solar panels if you talk to the installers You'll find their panels and the structural support for those panels the so-called rails Rated for hurricane forces installers will give you a written guarantee. That means if you install them yourself It's on you, you know missy you talk about coal fired plants producing most electricity in the US That's a disagreeable area too. It does seem kind of crazy. You buy an electric car plug it in to the grid

[22:56] Meanwhile your main power plant supplying the grid is burning coal. It's like no one wants to know how the sausage is made, huh? That's why I say go off the grid get self-sufficient That means you won't be contributing to the coal fired power plant problem Which brings us to the problem of those batteries missy talks about those lithium batteries You need them if you're gonna go off the grid you got to store power during the day while the sun's shining So you can run your appliances and watch Netflix at night, right? And as missy points out most lithium is gotten by slave labor child labor in China and elsewhere But here's what almost never gets talked about. Did you know that Latin America? Supplies roughly 35% of the world's lithium. That's according to the International Energy Agency

[23:44] And it's not done by slave labor here in Latin America people voluntarily Take the low wages two or three bucks an hour because it's better than raising driveway chickens The problem is where the other 65% of the world's lithium comes from Indonesia China. Yep Places where human rights are not much on the agenda The good news is that lithium mining in Latin America is up year over year and down Year over year in China as measured by total global output, which is increasing even better news is that Geologists estimate Latin America has more than half of the world's global lithium reserves Not China as people think chilly which has a very good human rights record at total of 11% of the world's supply in

[24:30] Argentina with an even better human rights record with 21% of the world's supply of lithium reserves. So in effect, it's not as bleak as it sounds It's not like everyone thinks talk to someone on the street and you say where's all the lithium? They'll say Unfortunately China controls at all. No, they don't but that's a common belief because it's all you see in the news The thing is China got on the lithium production bandwagon first because everything that uses a battery comes out of China, right? Well, that's changing fast Anyway thought you might be interested in where we're going with batteries By the way, another thing people seem to be unaware of is that they think lithium batteries like used dirty diapers end up in landfills Continuously polluting the soil in the ground water for ages. That's not true though It was even three or four years ago around the world now

[25:16] There are massive lithium battery recycling centers that are running at a profit quite a profit See the problem was years ago. It just took too much energy and money to recycle but now it's worth it The technology has caught up finally. All right changing gears now. It is the season, right? Did you know that every December 7th at 6 p.m. Sharp, Guadam Islands burned the devil They build giant bonfires outside their homes right in the doorway to mark the occasion You longtime listeners have heard me talk about this on the show cuz it's so weird Not only is it an annual tradition to burn a figure the devil in your doorstep sometimes, too You're also supposed to burn up your last paycheck buying firecrackers for your kids to blow off, too You see it's an old custom that Guadam Islands believe there's a devil in your house

[26:01] He's been living there all year and every year the sins of the family are building up and he's getting bigger and stronger So to cleanse the home of that cumulative evil, he's got to be fleshed out on December 6 They burned the devil which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because devils like fire, right? Reminds him of home sweet home. Go figure. Here's the thing Of course this age-old tradition has come under attack from NGO Environmental groups from where the US of course, they're coming down and saying you can't burn those paper products You're ruining the atmosphere and believe me with an estimated 500,000 half a million bonfires blazing with little devils in them all over the course of an hour in the capital city of Guatemala Along with millions of firecrackers. I'm telling you the next morning

[26:48] Everything smells like Hades and it's hazy like after a battle Not to mention the millions of pounds of shredded firecracker bits all over the place. By the way one NGO Estimated I saw this in an article in the Guatemalan Prince of Libra It said it's the equivalent of the pollution produced by a million and a half cars By the way, Guatemala is not the only country they burn the devil or burn something Usually around Christmas or in the month of December in Ecuador They burned the Diablo or the devil too, though. He's got an actual name. He's a Monigote and you know, I'm always thinking when I see those things on fire Why don't they just make life interesting make it worthwhile and torch a few politicians? No, I take that back. Not a few torch them all You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America

[27:37] If you need some help with your own plan be we can schedule a one-on-one phone or Skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in Central America Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan B Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com. No spamos