#1470 – Episode 1470: Basements, Cleanliness, and Emotional Intensity 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 out to play And now as I wander Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to The Exped 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 let's start out with this email from Joel, he says Johnny, many people who have moved to Latin America They miss certain things back home from where they used to live The usual stuff, old friends, places you used to hang out

[00:47] Favorite restaurant or two Now you might laugh about this Johnny but I've been living in El Salvador now for about two years Now I'll tell you what I miss I miss my basement, Johnny Basements, you can't find them down here in Latin America I don't think I've ever been into a house that had one The only place you ever see them is in one of those residential towers And the basement is the parking lot Basements, Johnny, why don't Latin Americans have basements I miss my basement It's a place where I put my tools and the washer and dryer, the water heater It was where I had my man cave I know some guys in the states have their man cave in the garage or outside in a shed But if you live where there's a long cold winter, you have your man cave in the basement Oh, I had a nice little man cave bar there with some beer signs placed strategically all over the place

[01:36] Stuff my wife despised A ping pong table and foosball too And on that subject of man caves, Johnny, they don't have man caves here in Latin America either In fact, the word doesn't even translate into Spanish Ask any Spanish speaker about a man cave and they'll give you a strange, strange look Anyway, Johnny, I guess by my little rant, you can see I miss my basement Signed, long time listener Joel, living in El Salvador and mostly loving it Well, alright Joel, thanks for that Yeah, I get it about the basement thing and the man cave But there are a few things you have to realize and you probably won't until you've been down here a while longer Number one, you don't really need a man cave when you're living here in Latin America Because, you know, what is a man cave anyway?

[02:22] Basically, if you talk to any guy who's got one, he'll say it's a place to get away from the wife A sort of escape valve A place you could have all your man trinkets and posters and things Souvenirs and junk you collected over the years The stuff she won't allow to be hung or placed in the rest of the house Lest company and or her friends might see it and make a snide remark It's also a place, the man cave that is, where you could hang out with the guys Drink beer, watch sports and things at high value Cut up on each other, crack off color jokes Fart and do crude manly stuff that would never be tolerated amongst the ladies or in the rest of the house It's a place where the furniture can and probably is a little ratty Filled with old, no longer fashionable stuff your wife would have given to Goodwill

[03:09] If you had not seen it out on the curb and grabbed it for your man cave Well, the point is, down here in Latin America, you do not need a man cave You know why? Because your Latina wife or girlfriend has no such objections to you having all that stuff In the real part of the house She'll let you have your fun, she'll patiently allow it It's no problem if you get a little loud when the guys come over to watch the game Latinas know that boys will be boys After all, it's a macho society and she's used to seeing a lot worse than that Latinas are very, very forgiving, if not super forgiving When it comes to men and their manly and sometimes objectionable habits Oh, and don't forget that most gringles and expats have cleaning ladies at least a couple of times a week Yep, it's a favorite subject of mine

[03:54] Cleaning ladies and maids So you could leave a mess here and there And your wife or girlfriend won't get mad She won't rag on you Because it won't ever pile up to the point where your wife or girlfriend begrudgingly finds herself cleaning it up Though she might sometimes out of habit, she doesn't have to Whereas up in the States, almost no one has a cleaning lady too expensive And guess who ends up cleaning up after a messy guy and his man cave A guy's wife, his girlfriend, or maybe his mother Which really ain't fair And often the cause of the kind of tension that keeps building up I mean, look, how many dozens of times have you heard an American woman Say that her boyfriend or husband is a slob But down here in Latin America, with the abundance of cleaning ladies working for gringles and expats

[04:39] You never have to get into that age-old Why don't you clean up your mess? I'm not your mother, argument With your better half or soon to be ex Now of course I do know some Single gringles and expats who do not have cleaning ladies or maids There are a few here and there And as you can imagine, their places are pretty well Like any bachelor pad you can imagine Though some guys I admit are anal and meticulously clean Lots of gay guys are like that And some don't even want a cleaning lady, they'd rather do it themselves Though that's certainly not the norm But as for the vast majority of the rest of bachelor pads I've seen down here When they don't have someone cleaning up after them, things can get pretty ripe Well, you get the idea And of course most of those guys fall into the cheapskate gringo category

[05:26] We've hit on that subject before In other words, they certainly could afford a cleaning lady At least one or two days a week You might remember me telling this story about my cleaning lady She works for me three days a week Sometimes when I've got a project going Or there's company in from out of town or out of the country I've got her working five days a week So then what do I pay her? About $15 a day Which is a little better than the going rate Which is like $12 a day So you cheap ass gringo expats out there Living in your messy bachelor pads Don't tell me you can't afford to have someone come in at least one day a week for $15 Hell, that's like a night out at a cheap restaurant So I repeat, if you're living down here in Latin America, you do not need to make provisions for a man cave

[06:15] Though I do sympathize with Joel about using a basement to store stuff A place to have your washer and dryer And store boxes that you'd normally have up in the attic Maybe a rudimentary shower, things like that Oh, and that's another thing Joel failed to mention There are very few proper attics here in Latin America Which I don't mind all that much with the sun the way it is And the tropical climate The few attics I've been in down here in Latin America are suffocating Let's say you live in Minnesota and you think your attic's hot in the summertime Man, you'll last about three minutes in someone's attic down here So basically any attic here in Latin America is just stifling any time of year They're just oversized ovens Honestly, if you're building a place, I don't recommend you have one And in a way, it can be a lot more architecturally pleasing to have high ceilings

[07:04] In lieu of a crawl space or attic You know those arched and beamed ceilings that look so nice With all that extra headroom Well, you see those kinds of spaces a lot down here Especially in the middle and upper middle class homes And of course to have an arched ceiling, you can't have an attic So what? Like I said, I don't really recommend attics anyway Of course, most of the middle and lower middle class houses have flat roofs So no way an attic would work under those circumstances anyway By the way, I'm not a big advocate of flat roofs either because eventually they leak Even if you seal them properly with a high cost impermeasante That's kind of like a rubberized or plasticized coating You might get ten years out of it, but it will start cracking In fact, I've never seen one of those impermeasante products yet

[07:49] That had a printed warranty or guarantee on the bucket That was more than ten years Usually they're more like two or five And if after five or ten years it does leak What are you going to do? Go back to the hardware store and complain? Good luck with that So then why do nearly all middle and lower middle class houses have flat roofs? Well, that's an easy one Because nearly everyone who does plans on expanding to a second or third floor And the only way you could do that is for the flat roof You know, if you're driving around Latin America, you can't help but notice There are tubes and rebar sticking out of flat roofs everywhere Well, of course, that's done in anticipation of putting another floor on the building And of course, the reason why they didn't do it in the first place is because they ran out of money Which is why sometimes years and years go by And the house from the street looks unfinished

[08:36] Of course, you won't see that in upper middle class and wealthy neighborhood They don't have to wait to scrounge up more cash to put up a second floor But man in middle and lower middle class neighborhoods When you see all those plumbing pipes and rebar rods Sticking out of roofs and pointing up to the high heavens That is a sign you are in a middle class or lower middle class neighborhood Which brings us to that age-old question Why are there almost no basements in Latin America? Well, reason number one, basements take a massive amount of concrete You got the floor, the walls, etc. And no labor is really cheap You could dig a basement for very little money But after the digging is done, the Portland cement to make the concrete mix Man, that costs some real dough Besides that, in many places in Latin America, it's not just dirt

[09:21] You're digging through There are rocks and subterranean boulders everywhere You never know until you start digging Besides that, Latin America having a very heavy rainy season Where do you think that water is going to go? If the drainage in your area is off just a teensy bit Surprise, surprise, it just might end up in your basement So there are some very good reasons why people don't put in basement However, if you insist, tell your builder, if you're building a house, that you want a basement He'll put one in Though since hardly anyone down here has a basement There are almost no experts in basements So how are you going to find a guy who knows what the hell he's doing? Because, like I said, if he's off a teeny-weeny bit on the property drainage And he's got little experience with vapor barriers and sump pumps, etc.

[10:06] Well, you're better off not doing it Just forget about it Build yourself a nice little shed or outbuilding That's what I've always done, I've done it a number of times Oh, and if you're building a shed or an outbuilding for your tools or storage Make sure you ventilate the hell out of it, or it will become a sauna Alright, moving on, how about this? Here's a brand new poll that just came out According to a brand new Gallup poll, Latin Americans are the world's most emotional people So what's that really mean? Now, we already know from so many previous polls that Latin Americans are the happiest people But did you know that Latin Americans are the world's most emotional people too? Well, you know, in a way I could have told you that, without a poll Because, after much observation

[10:51] If someone were to ask me, how many times in my life have I cried? Looking back, I'd have to say about four or five times, all of them at funerals Oh, and once when I was passing a kidney stone, but that doesn't count, right? And once when kicked in the balls I guess that doesn't count either Anyway, most of the gringos and expats I know As well as friends back home, etc. Most can count the times they broke down and cried on two hands And have a few fingers left over Now, maybe that's because my family are mostly Stoic Germans, I don't know But here's the thing, Latin guys, Latin males, are able to cry on demand Like a river, too I've seen it And I've heard many Latino males describe what a great tactic it is, too Seems every Latin male's able to do it

[11:38] Is it genetic? Is it cultural? I don't know But, because of that talent, every Latino's got that in his bag of tricks When he's caught cheating on his girl And the girls, the Latinas, fall for it, it works Though not always, and sometimes the guy will have to go through repeat crying episode jag sessions Go ahead, ask any Latina She'll tell you her boyfriend and her husband has cheated on him Often multiple times And if you ask her what happened next after she caught him Whether it was in the act, through word of mouth, text messages, whatever She'll say he came over and cried his eyes out I heard it from one of my ex-girlfriends In fact, two of my ex-girlfriends They told me pretty much the same story An old boyfriend cheated on her She dumped him, he came over and cried She wouldn't crack, she was having none of it

[12:25] He came back to the apartment every day, knocked on the door Stood outside with a bunch of flowers and cried some more And with one of those girls, she said that went on for a week But she wouldn't budge because he was a repeat offender He saw he was getting nowhere, so he went over to her mother's house and started crying And for the next week, he did the same thing Went to her mother's house and cried on her shoulder every day And both girls told me their ex would call him on the phone every day and cry Trying to get her mother and even her girlfriends to intervene for him The question is, does it work? Damn straight it works Seems like every Latina will forgive a guy if he cries enough So it stands to reason that a new poll shows Latin Americans are the world's most emotional people Let me read a couple of bullet points from this poll

[13:10] It says Latin Americans are the most emotional people So who are the world's least emotional people? Well, they hail from Eastern Europe They're talking about countries that make up the former Soviet Union Like the Baltics, Romania, Slovakia, Armenia, Hungary, Latvia, etc, etc They are the least emotional So you might wonder, how do they derive such a poll? What questions do people have to answer? Well, it's like this Respondents were asked on a questionnaire whether they had experienced any of 10 distinct emotions in the past 24 hours Like for example, did they experience enjoyment? Did they break into a smile? Did they laugh? Did they feel elated? Did they feel physical pain or worry or sadness or stress or anger?

[13:57] Turns out the Gallup folks surveyed 148 countries Anyway, almost all Latin American countries rated at the top With, get this, Bolivia and El Salvador sharing the very top spot With, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru ranking in the top 15 Turns out, Cambodia, Iraq and the Philippines were the only non-Latin American countries in the top 20 So that means Latin American countries took 17 of the top 20 spots Now remember, they ranked 148 countries And as for the bottom 10, they were all former Soviet satellites except one Only one other country not in that region finished among the bottom 10 That was Bangladesh. Who would have thought, huh? And who really cares? Do you know anyone who's been to Bangladesh? I don't

[14:44] So if Latinos and Latinas are the most emotional of all peoples What does that mean for gringos and expats? That means if you're living here in Latin America Especially if you have a Latina or a Latino Wife, husband, girlfriend or boyfriend You can expect what you might consider an overload of emotional responses Two situations that might not ordinarily evoke an emotional response Do consider though, to us it's an overload but to them it's normal So don't let it get to ya Oh and here's something related you might find amusing, you know I remember one time many years ago, I think it was at a Thanksgiving dinner up in Chicago Sitting around with my two brothers, my mother, my three sisters and some other family members Couple of cousins and such

[15:29] And one of my sisters was complaining that her boyfriend who wasn't there Never cries She says, I don't get it, I cry probably three times a week Yet I never saw my boyfriend cry Then she looked at me and said That's not normal, is it? Why? Why doesn't he cry? Can anyone tell me why that is? Then I looked at my other brother, she looked kind of confused I said, you want to know why? Because he doesn't f***ing feel like it And my other two brothers said, here here Oh and one more thing about Latin American countries ranking the highest on the emotional scale My opinion is, you should never think of that as a bad thing Because that's one of the reasons why Latinas score off the charts in affection, caring and kindness And it's genuine, it's not fake, unless you end up falling for a gold digger, a chapiadora

[16:19] And even then, for a while anyway, they can put on a hell of an act Alright, yank in the wheel here, moving on, Mr. P writes Hey Johnny, I think you are confusing late stage Gen Z with early stage Gen Z Alright, just a minute, me and Johnny here I didn't know there was a difference, did you? Well, we're going to find out now, he says, Johnny Early stage Gen Z, which I call post-millennials, are not like the late stage Gen Zs He says, you shouldn't be disparaging the lack of work ethic of all Gen Zers in the US He says, I will give you one data point, my daughter, she's a late stage Gen Zer She's graduating with a bachelor's degree in criminal science this December After fast tracking a degree in only two and a half years

[17:06] All the while she's been playing college volleyball and working in residence life as an RA Whatever that is, but it pays for all her housing, food costs, etc And she's working weekends and late nights as a dispatch for campus safety And working weekends at the local bicycle shop when not in season for volleyball Wow, Mr. P, she sounds like she's got her motor running She sounds like she's got a lot of horsepower What I mean by that is, once in a while us engineering types will sit around us engineers and nerds And when we're discussing someone or his or her ideas One of us might chime in by saying, well, he's got a 200 horsepower brain Or a 500 or 600 or 850 horsepower brain Which automatically puts a person into a category, right? You don't need to say much more

[17:52] Anyway, Mr. P, sounds like your daughter's a high horsepower individual Not normal, a real outlier, in a good way Anyway, Mr. P says, while my daughter is probably at the extreme end of hard working I agree, I have generally found the late stage Gen Zers to be grounded and willing to work And they respect their elders and are open to mentoring and advice Contrast that with early stage Gen Zers, the post millennials Who think they know everything and can do no wrong In my experience, the vast majority of the early stages only seemed adept at wasting time Having endless Zoom meetings with rudderless agendas Trying to boost their careers by job hopping and wage boosting By a way of collaborations and baseless recommendations from within their own networks

[18:39] All the while, these early stage Gen Zers like to mock boomers, baby boomers Who they resent for getting the actual work done And for attempting to correct as much as the early stage nonsense as possible Mr. P said it should be, if it ain't broke, don't fix it Not the early stage or approach of, we need to do something to justify our time wasting Zoom meetings So let's make some changes and convince ourselves and senior management via group delusions That these changes were good and necessary Okay, Johnny, that's it for my rant Alright, Mr. P, thanks for that, thanks for straightening me out on there's a difference between Gen Zers But you know, as they say, and as history proves, like-minded people find each other and hang out together I suppose all your daughter's friends are pretty much like her, or she wouldn't tolerate them

[19:28] So don't you think maybe you're getting too small of a sample size there? Just wondering Though as for me, I'm not the greatest judge of Gen X, Y, or Z Because I almost never come into contact with Gen Zers one on one, person to person Though I have a few nieces and nephews in and around Chicago Who are entitled little whiny Gen Z 20-something monsters Who I hope never get the big idea that they want to come down and visit Their eccentric uncle Oh, and as far as Gen Z kids from up in the States coming down here to Latin America Very few make the trip down Except those who come down to party on the gringo tourist trail during spring break Mr. P, and certainly the shiftless Gen Zers you're talking about The ones that waste so much time on Zoom calls

[20:15] I'm certain they do not listen to this show And the ones that do listen are certainly a cut above More motivated than most, and are probably having success in their own careers Or certainly on that path Let's face it, if you're a Gen Zer and thinking about getting the hell out of dodge You're way ahead of the game Now, you might be surprised to hear I don't know if this will be a big revelation or not But in Latin America, nobody, except gringos and expats Ever talk about Generation X, Y, and Z or use those terms In fact, I've never heard a Latin American refer to him or herself that way Except the Latino children of the rich who went to school up in the States And thus, all that first world rhetoric has rubbed off on them Meanwhile, you ask anyone on the street down here in Latin America

[21:01] What a Gen X, Y, or Zer is Ask them what's the difference Ask them what are the birth date ranges And they won't have a clue That Gen X, Y, Z millennial thing is a first world concept If you think about it, even the term boomer is a foreign concept to Latin Americans Remember, boomers are kids that were born after World War II Most of their parents served in World War II In one way or another Maybe they didn't actually go to war overseas But they served in the war industry Anyway, Latin American countries never sent troops off to World War II To fight Nazis or Fascists or Tojo So, things were pretty normal They chugged along as usual in Latin America All during World War II and afterwards Their kids, though they followed the same timeline

[21:49] As baby boomers up in the states Were not boomers themselves They had none of the characteristics of baby boomers And their kids and grandkids who followed the trajectory Of Gen X, Y, and Z up in the state Had little in common with their counterparts up in the states, either Until the Internet came and hit in a big way around 2010 Sure, you could say it landed in 1995 But hardly anyone had it Even cell phones weren't ubiquitous here in Latin America Until around 2010 So, people today under the age of 28, Gen Zers, right? Their counterparts down here in Latin America Are tuned in to what's going on Only through the Internet Fakebook, Instacrap, WhatsApp, etc But they aren't bred from the same cloth Not at all Sure, you could say the kids down here in Latin America

[22:35] Are more entitled than ever But only in that tiny less than 5% of entitled rich kids Who go to those expensive private helicopter schools Where half the teachers are imported woke gringos Yep, they're woke How could you expect otherwise? Bottom line, I have very little personal interaction with Gen Zers Except for what I get through podcasts and interviews And what I hear from listeners and family up in the states In other words, what I'm saying is this Suppose you started a brick and mortar business here in Latin America And you're looking to hire 5 or 10 college kids or unskilled people By definition, we're talking about Gen Zers, right? Whose maximum age I just looked it up as 28 right now Well, guess what? You put out the word that you're hiring You'll get a flood of resumes And as you start interviewing, you'll realize

[23:21] These Latino kids in that age range They're hungry to work, they're hungry to get ahead And though they're of the Gen Z age They'll have none of those Gen Z defects and bad entitled attitude We've all heard about Oh, sure, there'll be a range of folks Smart ones, dumb ones, mediocre ones And you'll have to weed through all that But they will not have those demanding entitled attitudes we've been talking about Luckily, Latin America seems to be free from all those XYZ labels Mostly because their parents did not have the extra dough to spoil them Oh, and down here there's no such thing as a participation trophy Nor have I ever once run into a Latina soccer mom I'm sure they exist, but in such small quantities Unless you live in an exclusive upscale gated guided community You could live for years here in Latin America and not run into a single one

[24:08] In fact, a couple of my good gringo expat buddies Are teachers at some of those high-end helicopter schools So they see firsthand the antics of the entitled rich kids And they too tell me that most of their kids are absolutely great Motivated, helpful, polite, eager to get on with life and get ahead And of course we're talking about kids who would be referred to as Gen Z kids up in the States Oh, but these gringo teacher buddies of mine say they do have trouble kids in their classes Not many, but they do have some And almost always they turn out to be entitled rich kids Whose parents are high-level diplomats or politicians Oh, and my teacher buddies have told me some stories Remind me to pass them on in a future show Oh, by the way, Mr. P's email wasn't the only email I got on this subject

[24:53] Listen to this one This is from Winston C He says, Johnny, I can explain why so many Gen X and Y people Say they have a very hard time finding a decent well-paying job Aside from the fact they never want to start at the bottom like we Gen Xers did and boomers He says, first off, I'm an HR manager, human resources I can tell you exactly how and why Gen Y and Gen Zers sabotage themselves on social media You think us HR managers don't see that? We look at all of it He says, as an HR manager, I absolutely pull up every potential employee's social media pages You can learn more about them in 60 seconds than you can in an hour in-person interview

[25:41] He says social media has sabotaged many a good job prospect Though he says it's made my job much easier That's why so many relationships fail too And for Gen Y and Z people especially Social media has inflated their egos beyond belief Unfortunately, that's the case mostly for women I mention this because in my 52 years of life, 25 of them in human resources I've learned that attractive people, especially women, get more advantages than average or less than average people do They can make mistakes all day long and catch a free pass But let an older, unattractive person do that and they get called on the carpet By the way, Jon, lots of women these days on TikTok and Instagram

[26:30] Who they themselves think they are super attractive because they either have many sexy poses there or tout their curves and cleavage Most of them, I bet, are one pregnancy away from being obese And one last thing, Jonny, I'm talking to ladies here If what you do in your spare time is jog on the beach in the least supporting bikini top you can find And you post those things on Instagram or TikTok Well, me, as an HR manager, you've just told me everything I want to know about you For one, I know you'll be a distraction in any department you work in You'll spend lots of time in the bathroom preening yourself and hurt productivity in whatever department you work Signed, Winston

[27:16] Alright, Winston, thanks for your input By the way, just an offhanded comment here Lots of crazy shootings lately, huh? Every single day God, I remember when I was a kid, it was only postal workers who shot up the workplace Hate to say it, but oh, for the good old days, huh? You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America If you need some help with your own plan B, we can schedule a one-on-one phone or Skype consult Just send me an email, The Expat Files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long Expat Insider Seminar in Central America Where you're guaranteed to get a 2-5 year head start on your plan B Send me an email, The Expat Files at gmail.com No spamos!