Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller explores the realities of expat life in Latin America, focusing on the challenges of managing domestic help, cultural and economic differences in labor practices, and the social dynamics between expats and local workers. From payment schedules to the quirks of daily life, Johnny shares personal anecdotes and insights into the unique experiences of living in the region.
Johnny begins by discussing the difficulties of finding and managing domestic help in Latin America, highlighting the cultural and economic differences in how labor is structured and paid. He introduces the term 'avenil' for handymen and explains the quincea, a biweekly payment schedule common in the region. Johnny shares personal anecdotes and opinions about payment practices, contrasting them with the experiences of other expats like Eddie, and explains the preferences of local workers for cash payments and the social dynamics involved in expat-hire relationships.
He then delves into the lifestyle and spending habits of household workers, noting that these workers, often from lower-income backgrounds, rarely purchase branded or expensive food items. Instead, they rely on cheap, locally-produced goods. Johnny also explains that expats often include lunch in their domestic workers' contracts, as it is a common expectation, and that having a live-in maid is more common for expats with a partner or spouse.
The discussion continues with the dynamics of expats and maids in Latin America, highlighting the social and economic aspects of this relationship. Johnny describes how expats, often paying high rent, find themselves surrounded by maids and gardeners who are already established in the neighborhood. These workers, dressed in uniforms, often knock on the expat's door to introduce themselves or recommend others for work. Johnny emphasizes that these workers are already vetted and have proper documentation, making them reliable resources.
He also touches on the perks that maids and gardeners receive, such as meals and a better lifestyle, which makes them willing to work for expats despite cultural differences and potential health issues from their diet. Johnny notes that these workers are usually in good shape when hired but may start to look like North Americans after working for expats.
The segment then shifts to how expats in Latin America often have their homes taken care of by local workers such as gardeners, maintenance men, and cleaning ladies. These workers sometimes bring their children with them, who can be left in the home for short periods of time. The children are often quiet and well-behaved, and the expats may allow them to stay as a form of babysitting. Over time, these children may grow up and offer to help with tasks around the house, especially when the expat is away.
Johnny also mentions that these workers are often happy to take old items from expats, such as outdated electronics or clothing, which they can use or sell. This practice is more common in Latin America due to the lack of charity organizations like the Salvation Army or Goodwill, which are more prevalent in the first world.
The podcast segment discusses how expats, like Eddie, often give away unused or outdated items to local workers, who then repurpose or use them in their daily lives. These items, though seemingly useless to the expats, hold value for the locals. Eddie's maintenance man, for example, received a ping pong table that was later modified into a kitchen table, and even a laptop that allowed a child to access free WiFi at McDonald's. These gestures create a sense of loyalty and mutual benefit, with the locals looking out for Eddie's interests in local transactions.
The segment also touches on Eddie's experiences with his cleaning ladies and his girlfriend's influence on his hiring decisions. Johnny highlights how Eddie, despite being a successful businessman, is easily influenced by the appearance of cleaning ladies, often hiring them based on looks rather than performance. This led to issues with theft and poor work ethic. However, his girlfriend, who is Catholic, has influenced him to hire a grandmother who is an Evangelic Christian, which has created a new set of challenges due to her religious habits and the fact that she brings her sisters over for work.
Finally, Johnny recounts a story about Eddie, a character who is on the verge of becoming an atheist. Eddie encounters a group of women who are engaged in a prayer meeting, with one of them speaking in tongues. Eddie, who is not open to such practices, decides to disrupt the scene by ringing the doorbell repeatedly and sneaking around the house. This action seems to snap the women out of their trance, and they return to their cleaning tasks. Eddie comments that the small inconvenience is worth it for the good service, and Johnny quips that Eddie speaks like a true closet atheist.
Topics
Expat life in Latin America, Finding and managing domestic help, Cultural and economic differences in labor practices, Payment schedules and practices, Social dynamics between expats and local workers, Lifestyle of household workers, Spending habits of expats and domestic workers, Cost of living in Latin America, Expats and maids in Latin America, Social dynamics of expat communities, Economic aspects of maids and gardeners, Documentation and vetting processes
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:50 The Rough Edges of Local Labor 00:01:16 Expats Pay More for Quality 00:01:40 The Quincea and Payment Practices 00:04:35 Household Workers and Their Spending Habits 00:06:34 Why Expats Include Lunch in Domestic Workers' Contracts 00:09:04 Expats and Their Surroundings in Subdivisions 00:09:47 Class Differences and Maid Uniforms 00:11:31 Proven Resources and Documentation 00:13:26 The Cleaning Lady's Babysitting Plan 00:14:10 The Long-Term Plan for the Kid 00:16:58 Why Workers Love to Work for Expats 00:18:04 The Value of Useless Items in Local Culture 00:18:48 The Transformation of a Ping Pong Table 00:20:50 The Impact of a Laptop on a Child's Life 00:22:31 Eddie's Struggles with Hiring Cleaning Ladies 00:22:42 Eddie's Weakness for Pretty Faces 00:23:53 Jealousy and Suspicion Among Latin Women 00:24:51 Eddie's Current Cleaning Lady: A Grandmother 00:26:09 The Annoying Defect of the New Cleaning Lady 00:26:51 Eddie's Skepticism and the Prayer Meeting 00:27:06 Eddie's Disruption and the Women's Reaction 00:27:26 Eddie's Justification and Johnny's Commentary
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. Let's talk about a few odds and ends now. You know, I get a lot of emails from people asking me how you go about finding good help or a handyman. And down here they call handymen guys that can do just about everything. They call them avenils. They're like a jack of all trades and can do just about everything.
[00:50] But don't ever expect them to finish anything off with first world style details. Everything they do is kind of rough around the edges, you know? And I know this might sound crude, but you don't want them to use your personal bathroom. And you could take that for what it's worth. And let's talk about that for a minute. I have one of these guys, an avenil, working at my house right now. He's working by the day and not the hour. That's usually how things go down here. Almost no one gets paid by the hour. And he's working for me for the exorbitant salary of about $18 a day. Now, some people like expat Eddie, say I'm overpaying the guy. Eddie says I shouldn't be paying the guy more than 12 or 13 bucks a day. Because you know, that's when Eddie pays his gardener and maintenance man. But then again, Eddie's got a full time gardener and maintenance man and the guy gets a regular
[01:36] salary and Eddie pays him twice a month on the quincea. That's how all the manual workers get paid down here. Every 15 days, the quincea. And the quincea is supposed to fall on the 1st and the 15th, which doesn't make sense because that's only 14 days, right? I've yet to figure that one out. But every expat knows exactly when the quincea is, even if you don't have any hired help at all. All you have to do is drive around the city and take a look at a bank. There's usually a line about two blocks long every quincea. That's because a lot of these avenils, these manual laborers work on big construction projects or for the government on road crews and stuff. And they get their money direct deposited in a bank and they have to go down there and get it. Or they have to line up about 20 deep in front of a cash machine. Either way, they got to stand in line. Now these manual workers and maids and gardeners and stuff that do get paid by direct deposit,
[02:26] they don't like it one bit. But if they work for a big company or government, that's just the way it is. They pay by direct deposit. It used to be, not so long ago, I remember the days well, when the foreman on the quincea would have pay packets or pass out the cash. At all the work sites, they'd set up a little card table, there'd be a guy there with a ledger sheet and the people would walk by and they'd receive their cash money or their pay packet. One at a time. Just like the old days were depicted in old Hollywood movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s. You know, a lot of people just got their pay packet. But like I said, these people who make $200 to $350 a month, the maid, the construction worker, the grunt worker, they'd much rather have the cash in hand. That's why they like working for gringos and expats so much. First of all, we pay cash. Second of all, we don't push them too hard and we invite them in for coffee and sometimes
[03:14] give them lunch. And speaking of lunch, a lot of times when you hire an avenue or a gardener or a cleaning lady and she's not full time, she only comes in once or twice a week. When you set up your deal with her, when you tell her what you're going to pay her or you negotiate with her, a lot of times she'll say, does the job include lunch? Now they don't push it on you. In fact, you're a little bit hesitant and a little embarrassed to come out and say that. But you can see what's going on there. She knows gringos and expats eat a lot differently than the local folks do. That's for sure. Some of the stuff we've got in the food pantry and the refrigerator, they've never even seen before. Of course, they'd love to try it, but on their salaries, they could never afford to buy that stuff at home. Let's take a simple example, cereal, you know, Kellogg's Corn Flakes.
[04:00] And yes, they do have Kellogg's Corn Flakes down here and all the sugar saturated cereals that they have up in the first world. You know, in the average family, when the adults are making 200 to 350 bucks a month, they never buy that kind of stuff. And by the way, there's almost always two adults working in the family. When we're talking about people in that socioeconomic level, that's about 50% of everybody in Latin America. The guy's bringing home, let's say 250 or 300, and the woman is working as a cleaning lady or in a little kiosk somewhere, and she's making maybe 200 to 250. So they can usually bring in about 500 bucks a month. And they always have one, two, three, even four kids. So what do you think they spend their money on? Not Kellogg's Corn Flakes, because a box of that stuff will cost maybe three bucks, right? And that's what it costs down here.
[04:47] Of course, it's a big box, but I think maybe in the States, what does it cost? Four or five bucks? I don't know. I don't live up there. But all I can say is they rarely buy packaged stuff like that, and they almost never buy brand names. And when they do buy junk food and stuff, which is a real treat, they always buy the really cheap off-brands that are produced by local companies. They don't buy Coca-Cola or bags of Cheetos or Doritos or popcorn. Just the very basics, sacks of rice, beans, flour, and the lowest, cheapest cuts of meat you could imagine. And as for eggs, they usually don't buy them because they got a chicken or two in the driveway. And just for your information, right now, a dozen eggs in a grocery store in a supermarket down here costs about a buck fifty. You know, your standard grocery store egg. From incarcerated chickens that never see the light of day stuck in a big old stinky
[05:33] metal barn somewhere. You know, just like the eggs you get up in the States. Unless of course you're into organic, then you can buy organic eggs for about three times as much, right? Well, guess what? Down here, you can buy organics actually for a little bit cheaper than the store-bought eggs. You know, out in the county, in the boonies where the chickens are free-range, they sell those eggs every day. And you can buy them from the egg lady that'll come to your house every morning if you want. Absolutely organic chickens and free-range eggs for about a buck twenty-five a dozen. Anyway, I was talking about Kellogg's Cornflakes, right? Well, you won't see that kind of stuff in the cleaning lady's house and you won't see cans of albacore tuna and you won't see olive oil or frozen pizzas or English muffins or any of that stuff. Not that I buy any of that junk, I actually have a pretty healthy diet. And by the way, isn't it true that every first world person that you meet says, yeah, I have
[06:23] a pretty healthy diet. Yet, they're always overweight. But anyway, your household workers see all that first world expensive stuff at your house, not theirs. And that, my friends, is why they want to have lunch included when you hire them on a daily basis. Though it's never a demand, they always ask you if you'll include lunch. And you know, I'm a sucker for that and I always say yes, even though I don't cook with a dam. So I just tell her to whip up anything she wants and she still doesn't use the olive oil or the albacore tuna. She always cooks up basic stuff and never experiments. She doesn't even know how to work the microwave oven because she doesn't have one at home and never did. So you really have to consider things like that. And the garbage disposal and the dishwasher, forget about it. And of course I also tell her to whip up lunch for my albanil, you know, my handyman outside
[07:11] who's building a cement wall and doing some repair work on my garage door opener. And here's the thing, if you hire a maid slash cleaning lady full time, of course she's going to eat lunch at your house, especially if she's a live-in, then she's going to eat every meal at your house. And just an aside about having a live-in maid, you know, if you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or you're married to a Latin person down here, I'll bet you 10 to 1 you're going to have a live-in cleaning lady, not one that just comes in a day or two a week like I have. And I'll tell you why in a minute, but if you don't have a significant other living in the house, then you're just going to have a maid come in during the day or a couple times a week. That's how gringos and expats do it. In fact, we have a hard time with that at first. It's really difficult while someone's puttering around your house, emptying ashtrays and throwing
[07:57] out beer bottles and stuff. It's a really tough thing when you grew up middle class in the States or white trash lower middle class like Eddie, and you never had a maid in your life because they get 15 or 20 bucks an hour, but down here they're like 12 bucks a day. So all of a sudden you can afford one. Hell, you can afford two or three, but it takes a lot of getting used to. And like Expat Eddie says, he was really uncomfortable when he first hired a maid. He didn't even want to hire one at first, but he was kind of pushed into it. And here's how it works for a lot of us expat gringos and gringas. When you move into a neighborhood, you're not going to be in a middle class neighborhood, middle class Latin style that is, you know, where you'll pay $100 to maybe $200 a month rent. You're going to be in an upper middle class neighborhood, Latin American style, paying
[08:42] maybe $300 to $450 or $500 a month rent. Now that separates the men from the boys. All of a sudden you're in an exclusive area, it's guarded, you've got beautiful gardening, the subdivision will have its own well so you don't have to get city water, all those niceties. And the people living around you, all of them, will have a living maid and probably a full time gardener. Anyway, when you're paying $300 to maybe $500 a month for rent, you're in a nice subdivision and everybody around you has maids and gardeners and stuff. And the first thing that happens when a gringle moves in there, all the maids and gardeners know that. You know, they see you moving in, they see you walking around. So the word spreads and soon enough you've got people knocking on your door, maids, cleaning ladies and gardeners. Most of the time it's two people at the door.
[09:29] It's a maid who's doing work in your subdivision for another family and you'll know she's a maid because she's got a tacky maids uniform on, you know, the typical ones you see in those TV sitcoms. You know, pretty much the classic maids uniform you see the ladies wearing at the Budgetel. And you know, like I said before in a past show, people like to have their maids dress up and look like maids so they can really display that class difference thing. It's pretty pathetic but that's what they do. And if you don't believe me, just go to any one of the big grocery stores down here. Take Walmart for example, they're everywhere. Well as you walk through the aisles, I guarantee you're going to see a maid or two pushing a cart right next to the boss lady in a pathetic kind of latin display of boss servant. And of course none of them really see it that way and no one's embarrassed about it because it happens all the time.
[10:15] Now try doing that up in the first world. Well I guess you couldn't because no one can afford a maid, no one that I know, you've got to be making 300 or 400 thousand dollars a year to have a living person in your house up north. And still, even if you pay her 30 or 40 grand a year, she's not going to wear a maids uniform to the grocery store and make a spectacle of herself, she'd be too embarrassed for that. But down here, there's no embarrassment involved at all. Okay, back to gringo's expats and maids. So anyway you move into the neighborhood, all of a sudden there are little ladies knocking on your door introducing you to their friends and relatives. And not only that, you'll have the gardeners knocking at your door too. Because normally in a subdivision where there's some rentals and smaller yards, the gardeners won't be working full time. So they'll be picking up days here and there wherever they can.
[11:01] They won't be introducing you to their friends or sons or family, they'll be wanting to pick up some extra work themselves. Whereas the cleaning ladies that come to your door in uniform, they're already working full time so they're going to offer up one of their friends or family that they're recommending for the job. And the question always is, should you hire a person like that on a recommendation of someone you don't even know? Well I say yes, and I'll tell you why. You see, when a person comes to your door who's already a maid in the colony, she's a proven resource. She's already working for one of your neighbors and if you want to go over and get a reference on her, you can. But it's usually not necessary. Same thing with a gardener and a maintenance man, they're already working in that subdivision so they're a proven resource too. And because they're already working for somebody else in your subdivision, all their paperwork,
[11:47] their IDs and their sedula, their sedula is an ID document they use down here in Latin America, or their DPI which is a relatively new thing, a personal identification card that you get that looks like a driver's license. And believe it or not, they actually have RFID chips laminated into them, but of course no one knows what that is and no one knows how to use them and they haven't got any machines to read them, so I guess that's just another failed attempt at trying to copy something first world. Anyway, since the guardhouse has all that paperwork on file, because they have to, those are the rules of these subdivisions. You see, if you have any workers that come in from the outside like cleaning ladies' gardeners and maintenance men, their paperwork has to be all in order just in case there is a problem. You know, someone reports a theft or whatever. That way they can track the person down at his or her house, or if there is a real big
[12:35] problem, go to the municipality and file a criminal complaint. And all the workers that work within these guarded communities, they know they're pretty well cataloged and filed, so there's usually no hanky-panky going on at all. It's just not worth it for them to do that. They'll lose their job and they'll lose all their perks and they'll get a rotten reputation out of it. And speaking of perks, that's why they want to work for gringos and expats. First of all, they get that gringo lunch that they never could afford themselves. And they'll live in housekeepers and maids, get the gringo breakfast, lunch, and dinner too. Now, I'm not telling you that's healthy for them, because they're usually skinny and in very good shape when they get hired. Then after they've been with you a while, they start looking like, well, a North American. Body style, that is. But you all listen to PRN so you know about those first world diets.
[13:24] And here's another thing, an expat Eddie told me this. Once in a while, his cleaning lady will bring a kid with her. A very young kid, two or three or four years old, and that kid will sit down nice and quiet all day long or go out in the backyard and look at the dog, won't make a sound, won't make a fuss. But it's easy to see through the cleaning lady's plan. What she's done is this. She's combining her cleaning lady jobs with babysitting, and at the same time, the kid gets a free gringo lunch or even breakfast out of it. And like expat Eddie says, most of the time, the cleaning lady won't abuse that. She'll only bring the kid in once every two or three weeks, and she'll ask permission first. She'll say, is it all right if I bring my grandson in tomorrow? I have to watch him just for a couple hours, blah, blah, blah. And if she's a good worker, how can you say no to that? And you know, there's really another plan too.
[14:10] That cleaning lady you have, or the handyman or the gardener who brings in that young son or young nephew while they're working on the job, now the long-term plan is for you to actually get to know that kid a little bit, then when he gets a little older, you'll find some little things for him to do around the house, and you'll trust him because you've seen him around, you know his name, and he seems to be a good kid. And of course, there's that added dimension of his mother or his grandmother or his father, all good workers who've been with you for a long time. Now take for example, my gardener. He's been working for me for quite a few years. Now he only comes once a week, that's all I need him, but of course when I need some repair work done, he comes and does that too. I remember a few years ago, he'd bring his seven or eight year old kid with him, and that kid by the way had his own little machete, he'd help his dad chop around the yard and
[14:57] stuff, kind of cute, you know? Anyway in the following years, the kid would come once in a while with his dad, and of course he's growing up, going to school and all that, and now he's about 14 or 15 or even 16 years old. And his dad says to me, you know, the kid's going to school, but he's available nights and weekends, if you have any little jobs to do, if you need someone to go to the hardware store or pick up something for you, he can do it. And you know, since I travel a lot, I don't like to keep my house unoccupied for weeks and weeks at a time. And what I do is I hire my gardener to watch my house. When I'm gone, he doesn't have to watch the house during the day, it's a totally guarded, protected subdivision. But just before dark, he comes in, he's got a key to the garage, and he sleeps in a bed in a little room off of my garage. Now let's say I'm gone for two weeks, I pay him $10 a day to do that, so it cost me about
[15:44] $140 to have a guy guarding my house every single night. That's for two whole weeks. Now not that I have to do that, I've left my house for weeks, even months at a time, but it's nice to have someone around to make the house look like it's occupied, you know? Now I ask you, up in Cleveland, would you leave your house for two or three months at a time, looking completely abandoned, without some relative or friend, house sitting or watching it? And that's what you'd have to do up in the first world, you'd have to get someone to live in your house, because you never could pay someone to guard it. And they'd want to live inside that house and use all your facilities, which I don't really like the idea of that. But you see, my guard is permanently stationed outside, and he sleeps next to the garage. And he brings his little cooler with him every day, and his little hot plate, so he can heat up his beans and tortillas and stuff.
[16:30] And he's more than content to keep an eye on the place and sleep there for ten bucks a day. Now the last time I was out of town for a long time, my maintenance man slash gardener said, how would you feel if my son took care of your house the next time you were away? He could use the money and he's going to school during the day, and of course you know him and you know me, and you know everything will be perfectly fine. So that's just what I did. And he was a nice kid, and dependable and honest, just like his dad. So that was a good plan and it worked for everyone. Anyway, gardeners, maintenance men and cleaning ladies love to work for us gringos and expats. Not only for the food, but because we give them things all the time. You know, down here in Latin America there's no Salvation Army or Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul to give your old junk to. And you know us gringos, sometimes we just get sick of something and it's perfectly good,
[17:18] and we buy a new one and throw the old one out, like for example, a radio or a shirt or a pair of shoes or an old style TV. You know, when those flat screen TVs came in a few years ago, what'd you do with your old boxy ones? You tossed them, right? Up in the first world, who'd be caught dead with a boxy TV up there? Why you'd get left out of the neighborhood? Well down here in Latin America, everyone who makes two to three hundred bucks a month, that's all they have, and they're glad to have them. And the funny thing is, even if you're throwing out something that you used once in a while, it could be absolutely useless to them, but they'll still take it. Like maybe a Ouija board or a croquet set. They might not know what the hell it's for, but if you ever make a stop at one of their houses for any reason at all, you're bound to see it propped up in a corner somewhere, even though they don't know what to do with it.
[18:05] But they know it's valuable in its first world, so hey, nothing like that ever goes in the garbage. Now here's a word of warning from Expat Eddie. Now he can keep a gardener or a maintenance man. They stay with him a long time because Eddie gives away a lot of stuff, believe me. He even gave his maintenance man a ping pong table. Now it wasn't in the greatest shape anymore because it got rained on a few times and warped, and the paint was peeling and it was delaminating and stuff. Eddie hauled it out to the curb for the garbage man, but the maintenance man ran out and said no no I'll take it. And guess what, about six months later, Eddie had to stop by the maintenance man's house because he was picking up some plumbing tools or something, and guess what happened to that ping pong table. It had been cut down a little bit and now it was a kitchen table, that's what the family ate on. And you know all the latins that are poor by our standards in lower socioeconomic brackets.
[18:54] Well they have tiny little cracker box houses with laminated metal roofs so when it rains is deafening. Anyway, Eddie said this guy's kitchen was so small that the guy had cut one of the corners off the ping pong table, so when the refrigerator door was opened there wouldn't be a collision. Anyway, by now you can see why people want to work for gringos, right? And another thing, Eddie said as he walked through that guy's house, he kept noticing things that he gave the guy. They were everywhere he said, a pink Floyd poster, a stereo cassette player. You still remember cassettes, don't you? A stack of old car and driver magazines in English, and nobody in his family could speak or read English. But still, he had them nicely displayed on a shelf. And don't get me wrong, I know I shouldn't be laughing at that stuff, and I'm not trying
[19:41] to make a joke about this guy and his family, I'm just trying to point out that when the common man or woman down here works for expats or gringos, they get a little bit of a leg up. Actually more than a leg up when they work for expat Eddie, because in fact the guy's kid was the king of the neighborhood, all because of Eddie's generosity. Because Eddie gave him his old compact laptop computer when he moved up to a slicker model. Eddie just wanted a new one, so he gave the old one to the maintenance man. Now think of it, here's a 14 year old kid living pretty much in poverty, with a really decent laptop computer. And get this, of course Eddie's maintenance guy can't afford to have internet in his house. That would just be way out of his budget. Even though the minimum internet service down here is about 12 bucks a month, that's still too much. So what did his kid do about it?
[20:27] The kid who got Eddie's computer? Well he was spending all his free time at McDonald's, because they have free wifi there. And as long as he spent a buck on an apple pie once in a while, he could hang around all day and use the wifi. But the father told Eddie with some pride in his voice that the kid never had to spend a buck. Because you see, he was the king of the neighborhood with that computer, and adolescent kids his age loved to play those computer games like Killzone and Dragon Ball and Call of Duty and stuff like that. So this kid's really popular and his friends buy him things at McDonald's, so they can keep the wifi going for free. So anyway it looks like Eddie's got a secret extended family now, doesn't he? And Eddie said you know when the time comes he'll put the kid to work, why not? And Eddie, like I said before, manages to keep his maintenance guy in Gardner a long
[21:14] long time. They stick with him. He's even got a crappy old station wagon he lets him use for errands and he knows they go and do some of their own errands on the side, but Eddie doesn't care. They're strictly loyal to him and they actually look out for him and make sure he doesn't get ripped off when dealing with some of the locals. For example when he's got to go down to a seedy section of town where they have the parts and repair shops for his restaurant kitchen equipment, Eddie'll take the maintenance guy in his junkie station wagon and when they get there Eddie's maintenance guy will make sure Eddie doesn't get ripped off. And I don't mean ripped off in a sense of stealing your wallet, I mean ripped off in a sense of getting overcharged for an equipment repair job let's say. Well his maintenance guy will look out for him and make sure Eddie pays local prices instead of gringo prices. Because you know down here, unless you're going to one of the franchises like Walmart
[22:01] or McDonald's or Wendy's or Sears or something, you can dick her with everybody. Especially in the small mom and pop shops, if you go for example to a little shoe store or a mom and pop furniture store, you can always knock them down on the price. In fact when you come close to a deal and you walk away, a lot of times a salesperson will follow you right out into the parking lot and that's when you'll make the deal. Though I gotta admit when that's happened to me and it has, it's always a guy that follows you out into the parking lot, never a woman. Because I'm sure for a Latin woman that could be a little embarrassing. Like I was saying before, Eddie can keep the men, the gardeners and the maintenance guys a long time, they work for him forever. But he has a really hard time keeping the cleaning ladies and I'll tell you why. Any of you who've been listening to the expat files for a long time know that expat Eddie
[22:46] is a sucker for a pretty face. He's a very good businessman and he's made tons of money. He started with nothing and now he's a millionaire but he has a huge weakness for a pretty face. And Eddie for a long time would hire his cleaning ladies and maids based on their looks, not on their job performance or their references. And Eddie admits that every good looking cleaning lady he's ever had took advantage of him. You know, they'd come late, leave early, ask him for advances on their wages and Eddie doesn't have the nerve to ask a woman to pay him back anyway. And little things would go missing around the house and Eddie would never call to help on that. And talk about Eddie giving stuff away to his help. The better looking the cleaning lady, the more things she'd get. Now I have to tell you, Eddie's had a lot of very beautiful Latin girlfriends. You know mostly models, the kind of girls that stand around cars on display at car shows
[23:36] and stuff and the kind of girls you see at those beach party bikini volleyball games sponsored by beer companies and politicians. You know, the kind that are good looking but you kind of think they haven't gotten much upstairs. Well, sometimes they have both, they're beautiful and they're smart. Like Eddie's girlfriend right now. One thing I can tell you about all Latin women is that they've got a wicked streak of jealousy in them. And when that jealousy moment strikes, look out because sometimes they start throwing things. And you know I really don't blame the ladies for being like that because every single one I've ever talked to, they all have some terrible stories about their boyfriends and husbands who they've caught red handed in the act of cheating. It's such a common story down here that you almost never run into an exception. So the fact of the matter is, Eddie does not have a beautiful cleaning lady anymore.
[24:22] About a year ago, Eddie's girlfriend who doesn't like those good looking cleaning ladies much anyway, finally blew her stack and tossed his last good looking one out on her ear. She accused her of having too much makeup on and wearing her clothes too tight. And of course Eddie's girlfriend took a lot of her wrath out on Eddie himself, saying it was Eddie's fault that she was acting that way. And I know Eddie, and he's faithful to his girlfriend, she doesn't have anything to worry about, but Latin women are suspicious of any female in the house under 50. And that's why Eddie's current cleaning lady is a grandmother. Though don't think she's some old mother Hubbard. Because down here in the lower classes, there's a lot of grandmothers that are around 35. It's a symptom of a very Catholic uneducated population. And you know when Eddie and I had a discussion about that, he corrected me, he said, look,
[25:10] my cleaning lady is a grandma, and she's about 42 years old, but she's not Catholic. She's an Evangelic Christian. And down here in Latin America, Evangelic Christian churches are popping up everywhere. And of course all the people that join those churches are fallen Catholics. They have to be because up to about 20 or 25 years ago, Latin America was about 99% Catholic. Now it's only about maybe 85% Catholic. The rest mostly Evangelic Christians. Now Eddie's girlfriend, who is a Catholic, has this idea that Evangelic Christians make the best and most loyal workers. So she hired one as Eddie's new cleaning lady. And Eddie, he says his new older cleaning lady is very good, but she has a slightly annoying defect. Actually it's a very annoying defect and Eddie can't handle it and sometimes he actually
[25:57] leaves the house. But he doesn't want to bring it up because he's not the kind to rock the boat. Eddie says whenever he comes home, she's always got the television turned on to one of those Evangelic Christian stations. And she sings along with the songs, not loud, but enough to annoy Eddie. And Eddie says every time he has a conversation with her, she manages to slip God or a Bible passage in there somewhere. Which also drives Eddie up the wall. And once in a while when she does ask for time off, it's always to go to some kind of church or prayer meeting. But Eddie says that's all small potatoes compared to what a great cleaning lady she turned out to be. However, a couple of weeks ago he said he almost lost his cool and let her have it. Because you see, Eddie let her bring her two sisters over to wash the windows in his whole house.
[26:43] It's a really big job because Eddie's house is mostly windows. Anyway, that morning when the sisters came over, Eddie walked downstairs to his kitchen to get a cup of coffee. And he saw these three ladies kneeling on the floor having a prayer meeting. And one of them was rolling her eyes and speaking in tongues. Now Eddie's an eyelash away from being an atheist, so he wasn't going to have any of that going down in his house. So he told me, he snuck out the side door and went to the front of the house. He started ringing the doorbell over and over, ding, ding, ding, ding. Then he snuck back around the side of the house and that seemed to bring those ladies out of their trance. Because the next thing you know, they were on their ladders again cleaning the windows. But Eddie said that kind of thing is a small price to pay when you find a really good cleaning lady. In his words, you take the good with the bad.
[27:29] Spoken like a true closet atheist, wouldn't you say? 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, The Expat Files at gmail.com. Once again, The Expat Files at gmail.com. See you next time. Nos vemos.