#1465 – The Expat Files: Life, Language, and Living in Latin America

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

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now 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 still digging through that email pile Let's take this one from Douglas living up in Maryland married to a Guatemalan. How about that? He's been writing to me ever so often about his plan B progress and the fact that his wife's relatives have some properties in Guatemala

[00:48] That he's thinking about remodeling and setting up a homestead. So he's got a nice soft landing pad Plus a Guatemalan wife and relatives who can steer him in the right directions We'd like to think anyway, so the big advantage is his wife's a Guatemalan American Completely Americanized which by the way works out really well for him and his plan B Since he'll automatically get fast-tracked into the Guatemalan permanent residency program By the way, once again, if you hear some hammering and pounding, there's still some big construction going on with the house next door It's none of my doing but hey you work with what you've got to work with right? So my choice today was to have a show with some noise in it or no show at all Anyway, in the process of getting his plan B on the move Doug's writes about this little story that happened to him and his wife

[01:35] I'm in Maryland. He says Johnny. I hope this story makes you laugh this morning I took my wife to the Guatemalan consulate in Rockville, Maryland Because she misplaced her DPI. DPI is just settler or identification document It's a little credit card sized document with your picture and some other crap on it And when a gringo or expat becomes a resident in any Latin American country, they get a DPI or a settler too Anyway, she needed to get another one because she lost hers. So they went down to the Guatemalan consulate in Maryland Only she was allowed inside being that she's the Guatemalan citizen So I sat in the car in their small parking lot chatting on signal with a former co-worker He says then I started noticing some strange stares looks and smiles coming from people passing by

[02:24] Something was off Then it hit me. He says I'm a white guy with a military style haircut Wearing a baseball cap talking and typing on his phone in a slightly window tinted black SUV I'm thinking it probably looked quite suspicious to the passerby's He says my wife later pointed out to me that people don't realize the consulate in this case the Guatemalan consulate is Considered Guatemalan soil. So I see e ice the immigration guys can't park there even so I'll give you two guesses what the passerby's thought I was Thinking about it was hilarious from my perspective and that of my former co-worker a Puerto Rican by the way Secondly Johnny and changing the subject. I'll always be that tech annual gringo. That means cheapskate gringo

[03:12] I mentioned this to reference your recent show poking fun at cheap ass gringos though. Actually, I'd say Johnny. I'm more Economical. All right, we Johnny here. That's a term. You'll hear a lot down here in Latin America economical Used many times in lieu of the word cheap or a barato turns out when Latinos Let's say go to a hardware store and they've got a choice of three or four similar things to buy Like for example a choice between hammers the salesperson knowing he wants a hammer will scoot on by and hand him one He'll probably hand him the most expensive one Then the Latino will look at the price and he might say do you have a hammer? That's mass Economical now you and I might say in a hardware store in the States Do you have a cheaper one in Spanish? That would be mass barato

[03:59] Well, it turns out the word barato or cheap seems too harsh or crude a word for many Latinos to use. So they'll say mass economical in lieu of cheap Because you see Latinos are very sensitive about being labeled cheap Unlike up in the states where the word cheap just means of lower price and usually of lower quality Down here in Latin America the word cheap or about at all means less cost lower quality and is sort of a statement about a person's Socioeconomic status, you see cheap down here is synonymous with poor and nobody not even the poor want to be thought of as poor Even though the average Latino is generally dead broke and technically poor so they don't use the word cheap or barato much But a screen goes and expats

[04:46] We use it all the time because we don't know the subtleties or ins and outs of the language as the locals do The fact is most gringos use that word a lot. I do especially when haggling or negotiating So for example, suppose you're in the appliance store and you're gonna buy a washing machine There's five or six different models your eyeballing them touching them kicking the tires The sales guy or gal comes over and sees you haven't made a decision yet Well, he might start telling you the advantages and disadvantages of different models Then start talking about the price saying this one's mas cado a little more expensive and this one's mass Economical he won't say mass barato that would be sort of implying It's mostly low-class poor people who buy the cheap or economical model You see down here some models and brands have a certain cache Latinos are funny that way

[05:35] But how's a gringo expert supposed to know? Hell, I guess I'd been living down here at least 20 years before I found that out It took a latina girlfriend of mine to straighten me out on that one Anyway, and his email Douglas goes on to say I'll always be that tecan yo gringo myself that cheapskate gringo My motto he says is if I don't need it. I don't need it I'm fine paying a fair price though, but I don't like being taken advantage of no matter where I travel He says I'm pretty good at bartering or dickering in whatever situation I met but get this Johnny the other day I was chatting with my wife's aunt who's also from Guatemala, but has lived in the US for over 50 years She asked me if I was the bartering kind of guy at open markets Like the one in Guatemala City Center where a close family member has a little Tienda stall

[06:26] That's when she proudly said she always pays the first price that the merchants ask Why she says because the street merchants in Guatemala are poor they don't earn much Anyway, I told her I always barter and she got a little upset after all I'm a rich gringo then I asked her when she travels does she pay the initial first price? Like for example when my in-laws and others traveled to the Vatican in Italy a few years ago. I Said when you bought stuff there souvenirs and like did you pay the first price? She said no we bartered. I noticed she wasn't thrilled when I pointed out that inconsistency in her story Why was it she didn't see Italian street merchants as poor and just getting by But viewed Guatemalan Street merchants that way. Well, she had an answer for that too

[07:15] She said it was different because Italians were white and European Hmm think about that for a minute. I guess that was supposed to explain everything. You can't make this stuff up Johnny Anyway, Johnny. He says I'm one of those to Kanye Oh cheapskate gringos for context. I'm one of the last baby boomers For a time in my adolescence. We had limited indoor plumbing these days. That's the definition of poor for example for a while as a kid We had a hand water pump and heated our bath water in a horse trough on a pot-bellied stove Meanwhile, my wife's aunt was poor growing up in Guatemala Even so her family always had running water and gas stoves in the house Something that when I was a kid, we didn't always have ourselves. So I sort of know what it's like to be poor

[08:05] Lastly Johnny, I'd like to talk a bit about contaminated water I know you might tease me about this But I'm a heavy soda drinker and for a particular reason He says after moving from Texas with heavily fluoridated water in the early to mid 1960s We landed in upstate Vermont where we had abundant spring-fed water and there was nothing better But during my military service in the early to late 80s every place I was stationed had drinking water later found out to be contaminated With all sorts of things. We also had water buffaloes Multipurpose tanks used for fuel one day and water the next sure they were supposed to be purified between uses But the water tasted and smelled like diesel all the time

[08:50] Then he says as an MP stationed in Arizona in a guard shack that was more like a telephone booth Temperatures would routinely hit 115 to 120 and the black asphalt road outside was so hot you couldn't even walk on it You might think this weird Johnny, but I went through lots and lots of water and never peed Gross I know but it shows how much tainted water I've had to have drunk just to stay even and baseline hydrated Fast forward to my time as a retired federal employee. Yes We were provided with bottled water plastic that sat out in the Sun was supposed to be filtered and purified But still many of us got sick Later we learned that one supplier reused the old bottles and filled them with partially boiled tap water So in short Johnny, that's what's tainted my view on water

[09:38] So I will be that guy who pretty much only drinks carbonated beverages once I'm down in Guatemala for good By the way Johnny even in federal buildings that I worked in there were signs on the drinking found saying Not to drink from the drinking found So Doug says it'll be nothing but soda for me unless I know the water is coming from a snow-fed spring All right, Doug. Thanks for that But you know, there are no snow-fed springs in Guatemala or anywhere in Central America South America Yes, but they do have this wonderful little invention called the echo filter It's a ceramic pot with a built-in charcoal filter and the whole thing impregnated with colloidal silver You keep that by your kitchen sink and dump your tap water in and I guarantee the resulting

[10:27] Filtered water in the reservoir will beat the pants off of any so-called even spring water You put up against it. Now just the other day I was talking with a really good friend of the show an expat insider seminar attendee living in Guatemala now a 100% rolling on that plan But he said Johnny that under-the-counter water purification system that you recommend and also have deal detailed plans for the three stages the three Canisters and all the tubing. Oh, that's plastic, right? I said, yep. Unfortunately, it's all plastic doesn't come any other way And even if you buy a nice reverse osmosis system Which is three or four stages all the tubes and canisters and filters are plastic, too They don't come any other way either. So you filter all the fluoride and the heavy metals and all the bacteria

[11:15] cysts spores pesticides herbicides Practically everything out of that water in the final stage that supposedly absolutely pure water comes out through plastic pipe And out of that kitchen spout into your body problem is your so-called ultra pure water is picking up plastic all along the way That's why about I'd say a year and a half ago when all those articles started coming out about nano and micro plastics In our food air water soil to work how autopsies are showing that in practically everyone Micro and nano plastics are being deposited all around our bodies. I thought man I could do something about the food by organic and be picky about what the food comes in how it's wrapped and handled etc and how you store and cook it in your house and in your refrigerator and

[12:03] You can filter your air with a nice HEPA filter at least while you're in the house And if you've got a decent car, you probably got a HEPA filter in there, too So anyway for the past year and a half or so, we've been hearing dire tales of but plastic in your water, man That's a huge problem Water is one of the worst contributors to plastics build it up in our bodies even with that really nice under counter water filter system I have the water is in contact with plastic during the final stages same thing if you use a reverse osmosis system So then what do you do? Well, there's an easy solution I've been recommending people use one of two solutions you add a final filter But not just any final filter a gravity unit with a ceramic filter that has no plastic at all Solution one for your last filtration stage and you're drinking water. Let that be an echo filter. Yeah, that's right echo filter

[12:51] You've heard that name before but not the cheapest echo filter, which I think costs around 40 or 50 bucks Why because the cheapest echo filter though It's got a nice ceramic and carbon element empties the purified water into a plastic PVC bucket and that's not good because your water will absorb plastics So by all means buy an echo filter, but not the cheapest one by the way, the cheapest one with the plastic bucket was designed and Initially meant for indigenous communities throughout Central and South America who were continuously getting sick on polluted River water and such and that cheap ass plastic bucket echo filter certainly does the trick except again The reservoir where the water sits with is a plastic PVC bucket

[13:37] But note echo filter has lots of different models They've all got the same ceramic and charcoal element inside with no plastic at all What you pay for with the more expensive models is a nice personalized Ceramic reservoir where the filtered water collects which is absolutely fine because there's no plastic involved So for an extra 30 or 40 bucks beyond the basic plastic job You get a ceramic a baked porcelain ceramic reservoir bucket in that case your water touches or it's exposed to no Plastic at all. So that's recommendation number one get yourself an echo filter So remember that you cheap-ass gringo expat to canyons out there Spend the extra 30 or 40 bucks and get the echo filter with this porcelain ceramic reservoir

[14:24] Now if you're not in Latin America or in an area of Latin America where they sell those echo filter Oh, you can find them in most Latin countries But outside of Latin America, not much why is that well being that they're nearly a hundred percent ceramic They're fragile in shipping and have a high breakage rate in that case order yourself one of those Berkey gravity feed filters, but don't get the Berkey get the one that has a Dalton filtration cartridge Why well, it's exactly the same as a Berkey filter That is it's completely stainless steel gravity fed and it uses sort of the same system as an echo filter a ceramic cartridge Charcoal filter inside coated with colloidal silver particle The difference between the Dalton and the Berkey about 150 bucks. That's the difference There's really no difference in the final filtration. They both will eliminate nano and microplastics

[15:14] So anyway, those are my recommendations for a final stage filter Wherever you are in the world that is if you're concerned about those nano and micro plastics Showing up in practically all your vital organs including heart brain testes and ovaries then again Like so many people you might choose to ignore all that More bad news. Well, what else is new? I've heard all the retorts We've all got to die sometime and I've got a 90 year old grandpa who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day Drinks tap water doesn't believe an exercise has been triple facts and eats at Kentucky fried five days a week Then again, my 15 year old cousin got killed by a golf cart Hmm. Yeah. Well, that's why I don't like to get into those kinds of discussions the kind you can't win Hell everyone knows an old-timer who's been smoking two packs a day for 40 years

[16:02] The problem is it's not obvious that people are dropping dead from plastic contamination But when someone comes up with a nice easy home testing kit, that will be the wake-up call and the game changer Alright, let's continue on with Doug's email in a recent show Johnny You mentioned that people planning to move to Latin America Shouldn't ship a container of household effects just too much hassle. You said buy what you need when you get here So then Johnny, what do you recommend for finding furniture? When you need to furnish your new place in Latin America Are there used furniture stores or specific shops you'd suggest do real estate agents sell homes furnished? I'm asking this Johnny because furniture costs are often overlooked in year one expat budgets So I'd appreciate your insights

[16:49] Alright, that's a legit question. The fact is for me the last two houses I bought they were already built They weren't new But I made a deal with the owner to buy them furnished now Sure, your tastes are gonna differ a lot from a Latinos taste But man my advice is to at least make them an offer on the beds and the appliance, you know stove Refrigerator washer dryer if they have one sometimes that's your bargaining chip, you know Let's say you throw out an offer for the home and they come back with a counter offer I've been in a spot where I say I'll accept your offer if you throw in the furniture and the appliances It worked the last two times. I tried it. By the way, a furnished house or apartment is referred to as amo blado Amo blado. Yeah a long tough word, but it's amo blado

[17:36] Now, of course every Latin American city large or small has a number of used furniture stores, too Lots of great deals to be found though. Most of the stuff is pretty banged up But you know a really good piece of furniture with nice solid wood Not that laminated particle board crap from IKEA Just remember if you go to the used furniture store and find a nice solid dresser desk Banged or scratched up as it might be if you'd know anything at all about furniture refinishing If you don't just go on YouTube and you'll see there are a thousand and one guys and gals out there Who'll take you through it step by step? Hey, I've done that many times and if you haven't done it, why not give it a try? You're gonna have all kinds of time on your hands Oh and also on those expat fake book groups, which I hate by the way, and don't contribute

[18:23] They do have one thing going for them though There's always an active sort of buyers and sellers club People are always coming and going here in Latin America and many are selling whole houses full of furniture There are always any number of gringo expats coming and going and the ones that leave and move back to the states for whatever reason They're often panic sellers because they bought their return tickets to the states already They've got a deadline and what they don't sell furniture wise will end up with the cleaning lady By the way in a previous show when I mentioned I don't recommend you send a container down The only reason I say that now is because over the last two or three years since Covid it anyway The price to ship a container from the states down to Latin America or anywhere has doubled even tripled In fact, I remember when I first shipped a container down. I think the whole charge was 1,200 buck now

[19:13] I understand it's more like four or five thousand and you know That might be worth it to you If you just recently got your residency in a place like Guatemala or Panama whatever Because you see when you do get your permanent residency as a pensioner You are allowed to bring in one container of household items furniture, etc Without paying any import tax on the goods But of course, you still have to pay the shipping charges, which is like I said are four to five thousand bucks So I hear so then what if you don't have your residency and have to pay the import tax your tax Depending on the items in your container anywhere from 12 to 30 percent depending on the item There's a different tax for electronic stuff clothing books, etc, etc So you'll never really know what the final amount is till your container lands down here at the Adwana

[20:00] the immigration and customs people and they sort out all your paperwork and by the way every little item down to the forks and Knives have to be listed in duplicate sometimes Triplicate that's how the Adwana determines the value of your items There's nothing really fair about it either depends on the custom broker in charge of your case So bottom line if you don't have permanent residency and you just come down as an expat gringle with a container of household items With shipping and brokerage and custom charging. You could be looking at ten grand, but hey, who knows it might be worth it to you What's it cost down here in Latin America to furnish? Let's say a two or three bedroom house washer dryer stove refrigerator beds tables lamps chairs I bet it's well under ten grand and the stuff will be new so it's got a guarantee or a warranty, too

[20:49] So that's why I say in most cases. It's not worth bringing a container down Alright moving on. Let's take an email from rod. He says hello Johnny First of all, let me compliment you once again on a wonderful podcast, which is informative and fun to listen to You've mentioned South American colonial homes a couple of times in passing I remember once you mentioned that some of them are not too expensive And then I remember you recently talking about people selling their homes in Antigua Guatemala because of the maintenance expenses Would you mind expanding a bit on this? Rod asks a question. How much do these homes go for in mid-sized cities? Is the maintenance really a nightmare? They have those big courtyards in the middle. I know is that unsafe. Are they prone to break-ins? I'm sure people have doberman's inside. He says just wondering Johnny warm regards signed rod

[21:42] Alright rod first of all as far as maintenance, you know a lot of those old colonial houses and buildings Were super overbuilt with one and two foot thick walls a brick stone and concrete That's what they had to work with back then Think about what that means if you want to put an electrical outlet on a wall or a closet a simple extra outlet You can either run the cables on the surface and that would be very ugly Even a nice pretty conduit run on an outside wall gonna look ugly in a colonial home Of course, the right way to do it is to excavate through the wall now. I ask you Rod Do you have an impact drill? Sure. They've got cheap ones called hammer drills and they've got impact drills They're heavy and they vibrate like crazy and they've got a special kind of bit Now what I've discovered and I use those things all the time here in Latin America

[22:29] After all everything is made with concrete and blocks or lots of big strong wells to punch through I've discovered the largest standard size for an impact drill bit is 18 inches That's a foot and a half But they really don't extend that far when you're punching through a wall because about three inches of that Goes inside the drill chuck, you know the front adjustable piece that clamps onto the bit So with an 18 inch bit that's basically gonna let you pop through a 12 inch wall And like I said before Lots of the walls in these old colonial buildings are a foot foot and a half two foot even three feet thick So right off the bat punching a simple hole for an electric wire is a problem a big problem Second thing is if you're buying an old colonial home It's usually in a protected area either a local historic zone or a UNESCO World Heritage Site

[23:17] And that means anything you remodel or redo has to go through a process of approval Usually a lard-ass board of self-important idiots so since you're dealing with government that could take forever and Recently, I just found out in historic zones and UNESCO World Heritage Sites You'll never get permission to put up solar panel. Why because that'll ruin the typical 17th or 18th century look That's even if your solar panels are impossible to see or detect by visitors and tourists So what's that all about? Well with all kinds of aerial shots and drones those self-important gatekeepers Don't want even aerial shots to show any modern changes So then what about those beautiful Spanish interior courtyard with the trellises the gardens the fountains Well, you'll find that often a consortium will get together and buy a city block, which is basically one big Spanish house

[24:08] Courtyard and all and they'll turn that courtyard into a sort of a mini boutique mall with nice little high-end boutique shops and stores a boutique restaurant or two maybe a tiny mini mart or bakery chocolate shop boutique hotel jewelry shops Whatever you see that being done all over the place in colonial towns and spaces There are probably 20 or 30 even 40 little areas like that throughout Antigua, Guatemala The fact is those courtyards once they're petitioned off are meant to be commercial spaces not residential They're not turned into apartments or condos Now as far as those big Spanish courtyards being unsafe as far as break-ins, etc Well, definitely not in historic zones or UNESCO World Heritage Site or anywhere located in a tourist area

[24:55] But you see for example in every big Latin American city There's what they call the old town the place where the first Spanish settlers came and made their Central Park and their church and their government buildings, etc and then after the Spanish got kicked out or overrun by the British or French whoever and when the Industrial Revolution kicked in those places became business districts So you can still find those nice big Spanish courtyards and lots of the buildings in old town Latin American City But just like in the United States many of the downtowns here in Latin America The old town have deteriorated and are not good sections of town anymore So yes, you might be able to pick up one of those old Spanish homes with a courtyard cheap But we're talking about sort of run-down areas of town areas that are not all that safe

[25:40] Personally, I would want to have a big beautiful Colonial home with a fantastic courtyard in a bad section of town or even a mediocre part of town Just like everywhere else in the world this location location location and you get which pay for take Guatemala City For example, there is an area called zone one The whole city's made up of zones. I think there's 25 zones Anyway, naturally as you may have figured zone one is the very first settled area of the city Zone to the second most settled in three and on and on anyway, if you know Guatemala City zone One, it's not a place you want to live. I'd say it's 75 percent business district in 25 percent low-end But not poor residential. It's a pretty big zone and if you notice there is an old Spanish colonial building on every block and

[26:28] Tons of them have beautiful courtyards that you and I will never see because they're behind closed doors at one time They were built and owned by the first group of wealthy Spaniards that came up But now those courtyards have pretty much been all subdivided into small apartments and small mom-and-pop businesses Almost none have been nicely restored So the original colonial house and courtyard still exists But to remodel one of those places and bring it back to the original condition man You're talking a fortune maybe up to a million bucks and still you'd be stuck in a sort of middle or lower middle class Residential zone mixed in with lots of noisy mom-and-pop businesses hardware stores paint stores repair shops clothing stores Shoe stores though here and there in zone one. There's a colonial mansion that's retained its pristine splendor

[27:14] Having been turned into a nice restaurant or boutique hotel So you can get an idea of what those places really look like in their heyday So that's the scoop and you definitely need tons of boots on the ground if you ever thinking of buying and or remodeling one of those old colonial mansion in fact, there's something to behold even when they're falling apart and most of them are 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 Insiders 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