Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller provides an honest perspective on expat life in Latin America, discussing travel warnings, safety in smaller towns, and the challenges of property ownership. He also touches on the unique relationship between expats and household help, and the importance of maintaining first-world standards in a region with different cultural norms. The episode concludes with a discussion on water quality and filtration systems in Latin America.
Johnny begins by introducing The Expat Files, a podcast that offers an honest look at living, working, and retiring in Latin America, contrasting it with the idealized versions presented in travel magazines and websites. He announces an upcoming seminar in Guatemala, which has already sold out, and encourages listeners to join a waiting list. Johnny discusses the US State Department's travel warnings for Central America, suggesting they are exaggerated, and highlights testimonials from attendees of a previous seminar in Guatemala to counter these warnings. He explains that some Latin American countries are on the travel warning list due to their banking secrecy laws, and that signing treaties like the Banking Information Exchange Treaty can remove them from the list. Johnny acknowledges that some areas in Latin America, like Mexico, are dangerous, but emphasizes that expats can find safety in smaller towns.
In this segment, Johnny discusses the challenges of living in Mexico as an expat, particularly the dangers of gang violence and the political corruption that has made the country unsafe for gringos. He compares this situation to other Latin American countries like Costa Rica, where similar issues of zoning laws and government corruption exist, but with a more relaxed enforcement. Johnny emphasizes that expats in Mexico are not the primary targets of violence, which is primarily a gang-related issue, but the overall environment has become increasingly dangerous. He also highlights the unpredictability of property ownership in Latin America, where zoning laws are often not strictly enforced, and the potential for sudden changes in land use due to economic factors.
Johnny then discusses the differences in regulatory processes between the first world and the third world, using examples from the United States and Mexico. He highlights how in the first world, obtaining a zoning variance requires extensive bureaucratic procedures, while in the third world, it can be achieved with a small bribe. He addresses the safety concerns for expats in Mexico, noting that while there is violence, expats with a low profile are generally not targeted. He concludes by advising expats to research crime statistics in Latin American cities to avoid dangerous areas.
In this segment, Johnny discusses the phenomenon of wealthy Latin individuals in expat communities being targeted by criminals, attributing this to their tendency to display wealth and their treatment of household staff. He highlights that the majority of crimes against these individuals are committed by people within their own households, such as maids, gardeners, or bodyguards, often with the help of family members. He contrasts this with expats, who tend to keep a low profile and avoid such risks, often not employing bodyguards or treating household help with the same level of disrespect as Latin individuals.
Johnny then discusses the relationship between expats and their household help in Latin America, emphasizing that expats often treat their workers with more respect and generosity than local bosses. He highlights the trust and loyalty between expats and their employees, noting that while occasional theft may occur, it is rare and often due to cultural differences in asking for raises. Johnny also addresses safety concerns for expats, suggesting that those living in smaller towns or safe areas have little to worry about, while those in big cities should remain cautious. The segment concludes with a transition to an email from Andres, who inquires about colloidal silver as a water purification method.
In this segment, Johnny discusses the controversy and variability of colloidal silver products, highlighting the differences in machine costs and the quality of the final product. He questions the effectiveness and safety of colloidal silver, noting that it's supposed to kill bacteria, viruses, and amoebas, and even be used in aerosol sprays for skin and nasal application. He also mentions the debate over the correct size of colloidal silver molecules for effectiveness. Transitioning to a different topic, he talks about the mineral buildup in tap water in Latin America, which is a common issue due to hard water and volcanic soil. He explains how expats deal with this buildup, often using a razor blade to scrape it off, and contrasts this with the attitudes of locals who don't mind the issue. Johnny emphasizes the importance of attention to detail in expat success, particularly in maintaining first-world standards in their homes despite the challenges of local water conditions.
In this segment, Johnny Mueller discusses his water filtration system, emphasizing the purity and clarity of the water he uses. He describes his setup, which includes a ceramic filter with a silver impregnated cartridge and a solid black charcoal filter. He mentions having a whole-house filtration system for his home, which he uses to fill bottles for his car and when he leaves the house. He only uses a portable filter when he is on vacation, as he believes it is unnecessary to buy bottled water at a high cost, which he considers not truly pure.
Topics
Introduction to The Expat Files, Upcoming seminar in Guatemala, Discussion on US State Department travel warnings, Banking secrecy laws and travel warnings, Safety in smaller towns in Latin America, Expats in Mexico, Gang violence, Government corruption, Zoning laws in Latin America, Property ownership risks, Regulatory processes in the first world vs. the third world, Safety and crime in Mexico for expats
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:33 Announcement of Upcoming Seminar 00:02:16 Discussion on US State Department Travel Warnings 00:03:31 Banking Secrecy Laws and Travel Warnings 00:04:23 Safety in Smaller Towns in Latin America 00:05:13 Why I Don't Recommend Mexico for Expats 00:05:55 Surviving in Mexico as an Expat 00:09:11 Bribery as a Solution to Zoning Issues in the Third World 00:10:28 Comparing Regulatory Processes Between the First and Third World 00:11:56 Safety Concerns for Expats in Mexico and Property Values 00:13:48 Introduction to the issue of targeting wealthy Latins in Mexico and other regions 00:15:07 The main point: crimes against wealthy Latins are often committed by people within their households 00:18:23 Expats and Household Help Relationships 00:19:03 Loyalty and Trust Between Expats and Employees 00:21:20 Safety Advice for Expats in Latin America 00:22:41 Colloidal Silver Production and Quality Concerns 00:23:53 Johnny's Personal Exploration of Colloidal Silver 00:24:24 Mineral Buildup in Tap Water and Its Effects 00:25:39 Expats' Attention to Detail and First-World Standards 00:27:02 Crystal Clear Water 00:27:05 Filter Components 00:27:14 Home Filtration System 00:27:22 Portable Filter Use 00:27:27 Cost of Bottled Water
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:03] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America. The show that tells you what it's really like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. I tell it just like it is, not the version they give you in those glossy travel magazines or the picture they paint for you in those international traveler websites where they're only trying to sell you something. What's it really like for expats living in Latin America? Well, if you stick around a while, you'll find out. So let's get started. Before we get started on anything today, I want to give you a little update on my upcoming seminar down in Central America, Guatemala to be precise, June 27th, 28th and 29th. And of course, all of you who went to my seminar website, which is www.expatwisdom.com, I
[00:50] gave quite a bit of detail on what the seminar is going to be about and why we're off the tourist trail. Well, you probably could have figured that out already because that's what I recommend, places off the tourist trail. Now, I'm happy to report that only 10 days after I announced the seminar on my show, I'm completely sold out. All 24 seats are taken much faster than I ever expected. I figured maybe by the 30th of the month, the event would be pretty close to being filled, but I never expected to get a quarter of the emails that I've been getting and they keep on coming. And the funny thing is I could probably fill it up twice, but I'm not going to do that. I told you 24 seats, that's it. No more for love or money. But you know how these things go. There's bound to be someone who just can't make it at the last minute. So I do recommend that any of you missed out, get on the waiting list. Just email me here at the expatfiles at gmail.com or at my new website that has all the seminar
[01:37] information on it, expatwisdom.com, and put waiting list in the subject line. Oh, and about my new website, www.expatwisdom.com, if you go there, you'll find some brand new reports and audios with my own blog and a continuous flow of information for expats. And on that site, you'll find my expat friend Robert Culpepper, the expert expat on all things European, for those of you who might be thinking of Europe as your expat destination. So on that site, I'll be covering Latin America and he'll be covering Europe. Oh, and by the way, for those of you who are thinking that it's too dangerous to go down to Central America, and if you go to the US State Department website, you see that they do have travel warnings about Central America and Latin America in general. Well, to ease your mind a bit about that propaganda, don't take my word for it that it is overblown propaganda, but do go to my seminar website once again, www.expatwisdom.com, and click
[02:26] on any of the six testimonials that I've got linked up there. These are unsolicited testimonials from high powered VIPs that came down to my trial run seminar back in February, also done in Guatemala, which is on the State Department's black list. And I can tell you that all six of these guys had reservations too about the dangers of traveling down here, and they heard all the rumors and negative opinions from their friends. Warning them not to come down. Friends, of course, who'd never been here, and who get their information about Latin America, channel surfing on their couches, and munching on Doritos. Well, just click on those testimonials and find out what these guys said after they got down here and experienced it for themselves. Listen to what they said about the security issues. You'll be surprised, and you know it's quite good in a backhanded way that there are US
[03:12] State Department warnings like that, because that tends to keep 98% of first world people away from here. And that means those of us who do find our way down here have all the fun, the cheap cost of living, and all the opportunities to ourselves. And here's another thing I'd like to point out about the security issues, something I've really never heard anyone mention before. But it's so true. If you were to take a look at the State Department black list, the travel warnings that they put out for Americans, on various foreign countries, if you look at that list closely, you'll see that as far as Latin American countries are concerned, the ones that disagree with American policies, the ones that don't toe the American line, and the ones that aren't big trading partners, often do end up on that warning list, especially the countries that don't sign that Banking Information Exchange Treaty, the one that Panama and Switzerland
[03:58] just signed, that allows the IRS to just phone up a foreign bank and request data on US citizens that are their clients. So the fact is, you end up on the US government's travel warning list if you have strong banking secrecy laws. And when you sign that treaty to open your books to the IRS, suddenly you're not on that travel warning list anymore. Isn't that funny? Now I'm not saying there aren't some really dangerous places in Latin America or anywhere. For example, Mexico, very dangerous and I don't recommend it, unless of course you're way out in the boonies in a small town where you're kind of unaffected by all that violence and stuff. But you can't stay in the Mexican version of Mayberry or Hooterville forever, you gotta get out to the big city once in a while. I mean let's face it, if you live in a little town of 20 or 30 thousand, that's safe and quaint and quiet and about 20 or 30 years behind the times, you're gonna get cabin
[04:46] fever once in a while. That's a given. I mean the same thing happens if you're living in a beautiful paradise villa on a beach. I mean after a couple of months, you crave a little of that cosmopolitan life in the big city. For a little while at least, especially if you're a first world person, that seems to always be the case. Then after you get a little of that city life out of your system after a weekend or so, then you can go back to your small town or island paradise for another half a year or so until you get the urge to spread your wings again in the big city. And that's one of the reasons I don't recommend Mexico. Because now if you go to the big city for a little bit of that cosmopolitan action, you're also gonna get a touch of the war zone. And it wasn't like that 10 or 15 years ago, but it is now. So all of you guys and gals who made investments down in Mexico or bought condos or summer houses or whatever, you're all feeling the pain now aren't you?
[05:32] In fact you should read some of the emails I get from people who've gone to Mexico some years ago and established themselves, started businesses or are retired down there, well they're suffering now and they can't leave because they're invested there and have their nest egg all tied up in their property, their housing or their businesses. Gringo property owners in Mexico are feeling quite skittish right about now and many of them don't know what to do, they're feeling stuck. And it seems these days the only way to survive nicely in Mexico as an expat gringo is if you live in a totally walled, protected, gringoized suburb, but you still have to go out of that protected suburb a few times a week out of your first world style bubble and mingle on the streets with the rest of the people in the city. You know, pay bills, go shopping, stuff like that. And that's where the danger lies and what you read about in the papers up north.
[06:19] Now I want to emphasize that all this gun play and burning of buildings and shooting of these narcos and bombings going on in Mexico, well, gringos, tourists and expats are not being targeted. It's all a gang war thing about drugs and power and territory and don't think the government's not involved. They're involved from the lowliest cop up to the president, the Congress and the cabinet members. They've all got ties to the big narco families. No matter what you might hear to the contrary, how do you think they got the big money that it takes to run an election campaign in a country that size? Remember Mexico's got over a hundred million people and it's not going to get better. It's only going to get worse. Everyone in government is on the take. There is nobody who's clean really. And it's easy to prove. All you have to do is walk into any government agency, flash a little money around and all of a sudden you're at the front of the line, getting treated like royalty, cutting through
[07:07] all that red tape that the common local is forever being wound up in. And that's why when you go to your lawyer's office and you spread a little money around things really get done fast too. And of course that's not just in Mexico. I remember in Costa Rica some years back when I had a little zoning problem. My Canadian partner and I bought some land right across from the airport, built a business and after it had been going a few months we got a notice delivered by a legal messenger saying that we had violated a zoning law and had built too close to a residential area. And I went to my Costa Rican lawyer and he looked up the statute and found out yes technically it was true but no one ever really invoked that law. In fact everyone pretended that it just didn't exist. My lawyer said he couldn't remember a single time that law was enforced or in fact even ever referred to.
[07:53] Until the neighbor filed a complaint against my Canadian partner and I, he didn't even know about it himself. And that's why when you drive around Latin America, Costa Rica included, you could buy into a really nice residential area, live there 5 or so years and suddenly one day you wake up to hear the earth movers and right across the street a big slaughterhouse is going up right in front of your nice subdivision. Because you see down here in Latin America the only zoning you can really control is the zoning within your own subdivision. You make your own rules, your condo rules so to speak. And you vote in a board of directors and all that and make your rules. But you can't control what's happening around your subdivision. And a lot of those nice subdivisions on the fringes of the city have farmland and coffee fields around them. So when you buy into that subdivision you're thinking what a view man this is great I can
[08:41] look outside my window and see little aromatic coffee bushes as far as the eye could see. Well you know it might be that you have that view for the rest of your life. As long as coffee prices are high it's going to stay coffee. But if the prices of coffee go into the cellar one day that farmer might decide to raise chickens or pigs. Or sell out to a textile mill or a car dealership you never know. So anyway you have to be a little bit more cautious about your neighbors when you do buy into anything in Latin America. And though there are some general zoning laws unless you're in a historic district if you have money you can almost always get around them. Like for example when my lawyer said for $500 he can make that zoning problem of mine disappear. And I asked him why $500 he said because there were 5 members on the zoning board and a little gift of $100 each would induce them all to happily give me a permanent zoning waiver.
[09:29] Which they did. Now I remember once in the United States when I needed a zoning variance in Chicago to build a building on a corner lot. All I was asking for was to build the outside wall of my building 2 feet closer to the sidewalk from the set back rule of 10 feet set out in the local zoning codes. Well guess what I had to appear at 4 different zoning meetings, write a letter to my alderman, my architect had to submit a full set of plans, show up at a few zoning meetings himself, meet with the precinct captain, and have the board members over to the property to show him what we had in mind. And to accomplish all that it took about 2 and a half months. And would have taken a lot longer and would probably have been unsuccessful if my sister's godfather hadn't of been a state senator who made a few phone calls on my behalf too.
[10:16] So I did get the variance after putting about 20 hours work into it, calling in some favors, pulling some strings and kissing a lot of butt too. Now I ask you, isn't it better in the third world where you give your lawyer $500 and the problem goes away and it only takes about a day to work the whole thing out? I'll leave that for you to decide. But that's just the way it is down here in the third world. So if you're a stickler for the absolute letter of the law, you might not be so comfortable when you first get down here. But you can see how it does have its advantages. But the examples show us how vastly over-regulated the first world is when it comes to government and how under-regulated it is down here. And I'll take under-regulation any day. In a way, under-regulation equates to freedom and libertarianism now, doesn't it? And over-regulation like there is in Europe and the states? Well you know what Pat, that's taking us down now, don't you?
[11:04] And it's not so pretty and there's no turning back. But I was talking about Mexico now, wasn't I? And the fact that gringos, tourists and expats are not targets of all that violence. But as you might expect and as they report in the media, they do get caught in a crossfire on occasion. So is that where you want to be? I don't think so. And I do feel sorry for expats who live and have invested there and who do have vacation homes in Mexico. Not that you're going to be a target for that kind of violence unless you have a high profile of course. Though there is that small percentage of class-conscious gringos who like to show up at the supermarket in their range rovers with all their jewelry and diamond rings and their Rolexes and their genuine Ray-Ban sunglasses. Guys like that are just asking for trouble, but there's one in every crowd. But the point is if you do have a low profile in Mexico, nobody's going to intentionally
[11:51] go after you. But under the conditions you read about in Mexico now, no matter how nice a subdivision you live in or how excellent your beach condo, don't expect your property values to go up anytime soon. In fact, if you want to get out, you might have a hard time selling it for what you've got into it. If there's anyone looking to buy in at all. But as for the rest of Latin America, when you talk about crime and danger and security, like I've said many times before, if you're in a small town, 50,000 or under, in a lot of ways it's like stepping back in time, like Hooterville or Mayberry, 30 years ago. And in the big cities, there are parts that are very dangerous. But like I said in a very recent show, all you have to do is be observant. Look in the first four pages in one of the big daily newspapers in a city that you're thinking of settling in, and check out the crimes and the murders and the assaults.
[12:37] And you'll see the pattern is that 98% of all those crimes occur in certain parts of the city, certain zones. And typically, a third of the city will be dangerous like that. And typically, another third will be very safe. And the other third, safe during the day, but iffy at night. So here's what you want to get out of that. If you're an expat or an expat wannabe, and you want to live in a big city with all its culture and amenities, the best trick in the world to select a place in that city you want to live, work, play, retire, and or invest, is to pick up one of the big daily newspapers and make a note of those addresses and zones where the crimes all seem to be taking place. And now you have your own little list of places you should stay away from. And in fact, avoid at all costs. And that, by the way, is what all smart expats do. So if you go to any one of the hundreds of big cities in Latin America and ask an expat
[13:26] who's been living down there for a while, which zones he keeps away from and which zones he lives and works in, he'll be able to rattle that off in about 20 seconds or less. Just like, for example, a person living in New York or Atlanta, they know exactly which places are nice and safe and which places to keep away from. And once again, I have to reinforce that if you keep a low profile, you are not targeted at all. And that includes Mexico too, though there, you got to look out for collateral damage. It's something that long-term expats are very well aware of. And it seems that the only people that really are targeted by the crooks and thieves down here are other crooks and thieves and Latins who like to demonstrate their wealth. And that's one of the things that's very surprising about the Latin culture to me. They know the crooks and thieves go after people who look like they're rich, but when
[14:12] they get money, that's what they turn into. People who look like they're rich, even if they're not that rich, but they're wealthy and stable enough to have good credit so they can go out and buy everything on time like North Americans do. So Latins have this really strange balancing act going, and it doesn't work in their favor. They all know that if you keep a low profile, you can live a safe and happy life down here. But as soon as they get a little money, they want to show everybody their new status and brag about it. Which draws a lot of attention to them, and eventually something does happen. A kid gets kidnapped, a car gets stolen, a house gets ransacked. And more often than not, it's not from the average criminal on the street. The average criminals aren't living where those wealthy people live. Or where the pretentious pseudo-wealthy people live. And a wealthy and pseudo-wealthy don't go down to those bad sections of town much either.
[14:59] They stay away. They know better, just like us long-term expats know better. We know which areas are safe and which aren't, and we act accordingly. But here's my point. Those Latins who show off their wealth, and when bad things sometimes happen to them, it's not that bad boys from bad neighborhoods have singled them out. And plan to ransack their house in a neighborhood that's far away from where the bad elements of society live. No, it's not like that at all. Turns out, 95% of all the robberies and kidnappings and anything else bad that happens to these rich pretentious folks that like to show their wealth, all the odd bad things that might happen to them and their families, are perpetrated from within their own households. It's been proven time and time again. Whenever there's a robbery or a kidnapping, it's the maid or the gardener or the body guards that are always involved in the end.
[15:46] It can always be traced back to a plan perpetrated by one of them. In fact, all you have to do is read the papers down here and see where the investigations lead. It's always a maid or a gardener or a body guard that breaks down in the end and says, yep, I was in on it. And many times it's not even the maid or the body guard that actually were in on it physically. They just were the ones that passed certain information onto some bad guys, most often bad guys within their own families like husbands or wives or brothers, passing such sensitive information to the bad guys, such as the schedule of the homeowner and his wife and when they're on vacation and where they keep their valuables, pointing out the vulnerabilities around the house, the doors and windows that are easy to get into and stuff like that. So my point is when Latins get money, a certain mentality kicks in and they just have to
[16:32] show everybody that they have some position in power and wealth. All of a sudden it seems like they're in a frantic game of keeping up with the Joneses. It's a game like you've never seen it played up in the first world. For a lot of them, just having a few more possessions than the other guy is a life's passion, which in the end can cause a lot of pain. And in fact, I know a lot of wealthy Latins who live that way. In fact, they all live that way. And every one of them has a story or two to tell about a robbery or an assault, always of course perpetrated by a body guard, a cleaning lady or a gardener. Obviously, employees like that know you're every move and whereabouts. And because Latin people with money always treat their household help and bodyguards as second-class citizens, so there's no love loss between the staff and the homeowner. There's just that thin veneer of civility, which is necessary to keep the household running.
[17:19] In fact, I've seen how the man and the woman of the house treat their employees. It's as if they're not even there, that they don't even exist. So you can bet that within those Latin families, those employees have built up a lot of resentment over a lot of years, and that the loyalties that they do have only go as far as the paycheck. So why do the bad guys pick on wealthy Latins and leave us gringos and expats alone? Even though some of us expats can buy and sell some of these pompous Latins ten times over? And by the way, I'm not including myself in that wealthy gringo group, but I am including expat Eddie. So why aren't guys like expat Eddie Targets? He could buy and sell ten of these pompous Latins with their Range Rovers and their bodyguards. Well that's a point that speaks for itself, because you see, Eddie could have as many bodyguards as he wants, but he doesn't want one. He doesn't want his privacy invaded like that, because bodyguards trudge through your house
[18:08] and drive with you everywhere you go, 24-7. Eddie doesn't want them, nor does he need them, and 99% of all the other expats I know, no matter how wealthy, they don't have bodyguards either. But what about the gardener and the maid and the maintenance man, if you happen to employ one or more of those? Well here's the thing, as a rule, gringos and expats don't treat their household help like second class citizens, but more like part of the family. It's common that you actually become pretty good friends with your help. In fact every long term expat I know down here is more than generous to his gardener and his cleaning ladies family, giving them older computers and clothes and food and tools. Your workers become your salvation army. That's why gardeners and cleaning ladies love to work for gringos. They prefer us over any latin boss, and because us expats are so far and few in between, cleaning
[18:54] ladies and gardeners almost never get that chance, but the rumors are everywhere that we are better bosses. And we actually treat our employees with some humanity, like real people. So when it comes to expats and their household employees, there's a lot of loyalty and trust there. And sure, occasionally you do hear a story or two from expats talking about things that go missing in their houses sometimes. Of course who else can you blame but the cleaning lady or the gardener? But in nearly every case like that, in the end it turned out to be such a small deal that it didn't amount to much. And even in my case I've had that happen, where a gardener had stolen my bike, and my cleaning lady made off with some vegetables and some potatoes, which only made me feel sorry for her thinking that her family was pretty short on food. And the same thing happened to expat Eddie, he told me his cleaning lady was stealing food here and there too.
[19:40] Just the basics too, you know, potatoes, corn, broccoli. And I said, you know Eddie why don't they just ask us for a raise instead of stealing food? I'm sure even a 10 or 15 dollar a month raise would be a big help. And Eddie sent me straight in that, he said, look, they're not likely to ask you for a raise because in their culture, when they ask their latin boss for a raise, he only gets mad and pissed off at them and is more than likely to tell them they're not worth what they're getting now. And even if their latin boss doesn't exactly blow up at them, the boss is likely to say things are tough all over and that things are tough for him too. And then the very next week, him and his wife will head out on a shopping spree to Miami. And that's a common move that doesn't exactly endear a cleaning lady to her boss. So the fact is, household workers don't like to ask for raises because it doesn't get them anywhere and it just pisses off the man of the house.
[20:27] And thus the occasional petty thievery. But you know what, that stuff almost never happens to expats and gringos with their long term household employees. Because most gringos are really quite generous and give away a lot of extras to their help. And they give them nice gifts at Christmas and birthdays and stuff. And even the occasional bonus and the average latin boss would never think of doing that. And in my case, and with a lot of other expats I know, including Eddie, when we do detect things going missing around our houses, it always seems to be right after a new employee has been hired. In fact, the gardener that stole my bike had only been working for me for a short time. But let me emphasize that he was a new employee and not much brought in as a family member or friend yet. That's always something that takes a little time. So anyway, you gringos and expats who are hanging around down here and don't have body guards and cleaning ladies and gardeners and stuff, you don't have much to worry about
[21:15] on the safety issues at all. Provided you stay in the safe areas of town and you keep a low profile. And that's my advice if you're living in a big city. But if you're living in a smaller town, 50,000 or less, if you're off the tourist track, you'll find the town is thrown back 20 or 30 years in time and you'll feel quite safe just about everywhere you want to go. Even if you get that overwhelming urge to wear that Rolex in those Ray-Bans, even then you still won't be a target. Okay let me switch gears a little bit. Now I'm going to read an email from Andres, one of the guys that's coming to my upcoming seminar. And by the way, the people who signed up so far are not all from the United States or Canada. Most of them are regular first world gringos that are coming, but we've also got people coming from China and Germany. But let me get to that email. And I really think it's worth a mention so listen up. He says, Dear Johnny, in one of your podcasts I noticed that you talked about the water
[22:02] quality down there in Latin America and that you yourself use one of those portable catadine water systems. I'm just curious, did you ever try colloidal silver as a water purifier? I've heard that just a few drops per liter will kill bacteria, viruses, amoebas, etc. And yes Andres, I have looked into colloidal silver. There are just so many colloidal silver products out there that I don't know which one is real and which is effective or what. Everyone says their system is the best and some sell the actual colloidal silver in little bottles for like 25 or 30 bucks and others sell the machine to make the colloidal silver yourself with silver electrodes and a little unit that you plug into the wall and that's supposed to produce enough colloidal silver for a lifetime. But here's the thing, some of those machines cost 60 bucks and some cost 360 and you gotta
[22:48] wonder what's the quality of the colloidal silver that's coming out of there. Is all colloidal silver the same if it comes out of a machine like that? And what's the difference between the cheap machines and the expensive ones? And then you got the controversy about how much actual colloidal silver suspension you should use in a liter or gallon of water. And what's colloidal silver supposed to do anyway? Not only is it supposed to kill bacteria, viruses, and amoebas in water, you're supposed to be able to put it in an aerosol spray and use it on your skin and some websites claim you're supposed to spray it into your nose so you can get it in your lungs every day too. And others say that you should bring it into a restaurant and spray it on the table, on the arms of the chairs, on the plates, and the silverware and stuff too. I mean it's obvious you could get carried away with the stuff, right? And maybe you'll even get kicked out if the owner thinks you're a nutcase. And now I'm reading that some of the colloidal silver that you buy is not the right size
[23:36] colloidal molecules, and you have to have a certain size to work correctly at a molecular level. It seems like there's a lot of good science behind it, and a lot of just hearsay too. And if you look on the web you'll see that some people think it's pure BS, another faddish new age thing, which I know can't be true, but that's on the web too. I'm actually checking it out a bit more myself, so I'll give you an update on it. But here's another thing, tell me what you think about this. Most of the time in the third world, when you take a clear glass and you pour tap water into it, it's a pretty ugly sight. There's a lot of things floating in there, sometimes it's cloudy, dark, and various shades of pink or yellow. And if you look at a dry sink or a toilet bowl, you'll always see heavily mineralized ugly stains stuck to the porcelain like epoxy glue. And that's all precipitating out from that tap water. So yes folks, if you're drinking unfiltered tap water down here, that's what's going
[24:24] into your system. And by the way, there's no place in Latin America where you don't see that mineral build up, and believe me, even a stick of dynamite won't take that stuff off. It's a permanent fixture down here, and the only way you can prevent it, is after you use the water in the sink or a bathtub, you wipe it down dry with a towel, then that ugly crusty stuff never makes an appearance. And you know, if you were up in Chicago or Boise or Cleveland or whatever in the first world, you'd never tolerate that ugliness in your sink's bathtubs or toilets. And that's all about the attitudes you have in being brought up a first world person. Details, details, details. So what I'm saying, down here even in the richest of homes, the guys with Range Rovers, Porsches and Bodyguards, it doesn't matter how much money they have, they still have crusty, scummy build up in their sinks, toilets and bathtubs. And they don't seem to mind, they don't comment on it, and they just seem to accept it.
[25:13] Getting rid of it is not even a consideration. But it drives us expats absolutely nuts. And our cleaning ladies are stumped. They have no idea how to get rid of that stuff, but us expats know how. Just take a razor blade and start scraping, and you can flake the stuff off. It takes some elbow grease, but you can get it off. And most of us have trained our cleaning ladies to do that. And of course at first they think we're nuts, but that's in their routine now, and our toilets and sinks look just fine. First world all the way. It's all about the details and why us expats succeed so well in business down here. The majority of the details that we consider when starting a business, the average Latin boss would never even contemplate, it never even crosses their minds. And by the way, every tile shower stall I've ever seen down here is filled with that scummy
[25:58] crud too. But you think anyone would ever bother to remove it? Nope, that's not on their radar. It's just the way things are down here. Except of course if you're an expat. And I'm not saying that you wouldn't leave it there yourself if you rented a place, why should you spend all that time scraping the crap down? But gringos who own their own places tend to keep their places first world as best they can, and that includes removing the scummy hard water build up from sinks, toilets, bathtubs and shower stalls. And just to mention hard water for a minute, Latin America has very hard mineralized water because the vast majority of Latin Americans get their water not from lakes but from wells. And Latin America is mostly volcanic ridges and mountains. So the water table is built on volcanic soil, which is loaded with dissolvable minerals. So when you pour water into a glass, it's always cloudy and discolored.
[26:46] Now I don't care if colloidal silver kills every single bacteria and virus in that glass. That water will still look pretty disgusting. It's still too ugly to drink and I just don't like doing it. And with my little portable filter, I could stick a hose in a dirty dark river and my water will come out crystal clear and 100% pure. My little filter has a silver impregnated ceramic cartridge element in series with a solid black charcoal filter. The water is pure and crystal clear that I like. And by the way, in my house I have my own ceramic filter charcoal block whole house system that I use to fill bottles for my car and when I head out of the house. And I only use that expensive little portable filter when I'm out on vacation and exploring. So I don't have to buy pure water for 50 cents a bottle, which I know isn't really pure anyway.
[27:38] You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, coming to you each week from somewhere south of the border. And don't forget you can email me on anything at all about Latin America, theexpatfiles at gmail.com. Once again, theexpatfiles at gmail.com. See you next time. Nos vemos.