Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller dives into the practicalities of life in Latin America, covering a range of topics that expats often encounter. He begins by addressing an email from George about appliance repair in the region, explaining that while first-world products may come with guarantees, these are rarely honored in Latin America. However, local repair shops can usually fix most appliances, even if it takes time to source parts. Johnny shares a personal anecdote about a remote control that stopped working on his TV after a year and a half, highlighting the challenges of living in the region.
Next, Johnny discusses flooring choices in Latin America, noting that insects prefer carpets, making wood or tile floors the cleanest option. He emphasizes the importance of hiring experienced tile setters, as many local workers lack the proper equipment for precision work. He also shares a story about a broken TV he purchased, comparing the repair costs at a Costco store with a local repair shop. The local shop charged $14 for the repair, while the Costco required a $40 diagnostic fee. Johnny reflects on his past experiences as an engineer and the challenges of DIY repairs.
Johnny then shifts to the cost-effectiveness of hiring local workers for home repairs, noting that while it might be tempting to do the work yourself, the time and effort involved can be better spent on leisure activities. He highlights the affordability and quality of local repair services, noting that despite their unassuming appearance, these shops often provide reliable and inexpensive solutions. He advises expats to be low profile when dealing with local businesses to avoid unwanted attention.
In another segment, Johnny discusses the importance of being low profile when navigating neighborhoods in Latin America. He emphasizes that in active, bustling areas, expats are often treated well and may even be considered royalty due to their novelty as gringos. He also highlights the small-world aspect of Latin America, where people often have connections to the U.S., even if their geographical understanding is lacking. Johnny then shifts to discussing energy efficiency in Latin American homes, noting that many lack proper insulation and energy-saving techniques, leading to high electricity bills. He explains that construction methods and cultural attitudes toward planning ahead contribute to this issue, but there are some energy-saving practices, like skylights in closets, that are commonly used.
Finally, Johnny addresses practical considerations for living in Latin America, focusing on skylights, electrical outlets, and security. He explains that skylights in closets should be no larger than one foot square to avoid attracting thieves, but in safer areas like gated communities, larger skylights are acceptable. He also highlights the lack of electrical outlets in closets and bathrooms in many homes, advising expats to insist on proper electrical installations when building or renovating. Johnny emphasizes the challenges of retrofitting electrical systems in existing homes due to the difficulty of working with concrete and block structures, and recommends addressing these issues before moving in.
Topics
Appliance repair in Latin America, Guarantees and warranties for first-world products, Local repair shops and their capabilities, Flooring in Latin America, Cost of labor and repairs, Personal anecdotes about living in Latin America, DIY vs. professional repair, Cost of home repairs in Latin America, Affordability of local services, Technical education in Latin America, Safety and visibility when dealing with local businesses, Being low profile in Latin America
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:40 Appliance Repair in Latin America 00:01:52 The Reality of First-World Guarantees 00:02:53 Local Repair Shops and Their Capabilities 00:04:10 A Personal Anecdote About Appliance Repair 00:05:46 Insects and Flooring Preferences in Latin America 00:07:48 TV Repair Costs and Local vs. Costco Services 00:11:36 The Cost of DIY Repairs in Latin America 00:12:27 The Value of DIY in the First World 00:14:49 The Technical Expertise of Local Repair Shops 00:17:01 Being Low Profile in Latin America 00:17:04 Treatment of Expats in Active Neighborhoods 00:17:10 Small-World Connections in Latin America 00:18:35 Energy Efficiency in Latin American Homes 00:22:00 Energy-Saving Techniques Like Skylights 00:22:44 Security and Skylight Size in Closets 00:23:21 Electrical Outlets in Closets and Bathrooms 00:24:44 Electrical Outlets in Bathrooms and Retrofitting Challenges
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder My thoughts ever straight 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 so let's get started Okay today we got to catch up with some emails We're gonna go into that grab bag which is overflowing already and see what's on people's minds now I got an email from George asking me about appliance repair. He's saying look I understanding one of your past shows you were talking about how when you buy things down in Latin America
[00:50] Like appliances you do get a guarantee on it though It might not be guaranteed for as long a time as if you bought that thing up in the first world What's the scoop on getting things repaired down there? And what happens when you bring something down from the first world like a microwave or a washing machine or a TV? And you need to get it fixed Basically what happens if it's still under guarantee and if it's not what do you do then? Short of buying a brand new one down there and then getting a guarantee from some Latin American appliance store and hoping they'll honor It if that one breaks, okay Let me just start out by saying that if you bought something up in the States and brought it down here And it's got a three-year guarantee. Let's say if it breaks while it's still under that guarantee Well, normally you're SOL you're gonna have to pay for that repair out of your own pocket in about 90% of the cases
[01:41] That's even if it's under a rock-solid guarantee from a big-name manufacturer like Panasonic or Sony I'm talking about a guarantee that you got from a store you bought it from up in the first world But notice that I said 90% of the time you'll be SOL once you get it down here well, if you buy something from a US chain that's been internationally franchised like Sears or Office Depot Then they actually will cover that guarantee because it's basically the same store and they have to honor that promise In other words, you buy a shop vac from Sears up in the States with a two-year guarantee And you bring it down here and it breaks in a year and a half. Well, they're gonna fix it at Sears So keep that in mind that exception to the rule is something to think about But let's talk about the usual case when you bring something down from the States and you don't have a guarantee anymore
[02:29] And you know new expats do run around a lot check the internet and go from store to store Just to see if they're guaranteed from the first world will apply. Well, my advice comes from what expat Eddie says He says just assume nothing has a guarantee once you get it down here and you'll most likely be right So don't waste your time thinking about it and that 10% of the time when that first world guarantee is actually honored Look at it as a gift now Here's something that's very important to know the Latins can fix just about anything you can bring down and it's not at all like The old days when they couldn't get parts and the old days weren't so long ago like five to ten years So, let me repeat no matter how common or esoteric your appliances or electronic items might be they could fix just about any brand Name on any appliance or anything electronic and if the repair shop needs the parts
[03:18] They have huge central clearing houses for parts for manufacturers of all kinds And if you can't get the part because it's an orphan or it's just an oddball brand It might take a week or two or three, but they'll be able to get that part pretty quick by ordering off the internet But here's what you didn't know most gringos that are down here a short while and green expats if for example They have a name brand appliance like Whirlpool or GE or Samsung or LG that needs to be repaired They'll usually always take it back to a certified dealer to a store that sells their brand name product brand new Because that's what they always did back in the states They took it back to the so-called authorized Sony panasonic or Whirlpool dealer The logic being they'll get the best service and best turnaround because obviously they'll have the parts
[04:05] Well, that's true. But let me tell you a little story about that now about a year and a half ago I bought an LCD TV From the local Costco actually called price smart down here Now I don't know why they call them price smart down here in Latin America Because those two English words price and smart mean nothing to people who speak Spanish The spanish word for price is presio and the spanish word for smart is Intelliente, you know like intelligent or you can use the word listo, which means clever talk about bad marketing and signage So by rights the store should be called presio. It tell a hente or presio listo, but it's not instead It's called price smart. They should have just stuck with costco. I don't get it Anyway, because it's a first world all the way the store is doing gangbusters
[04:52] Regardless of the english name that makes no sense the spanish speakers, but back to my repair story After a year and a half my remote control stopped working on my lcd tv And naturally the first thing that goes through your mind is it's a miracle my remote lasted that long Since I dropped it on the hard tile floor about 600 times since I bought it And by the way, if you remember in one of my past shows I said you should never have carpeting down here in latin america because there's never snow or a frost to kill the bug population Carpets and rugs are a bad idea, but people want what they want no matter how impractical So they still keep buying the things that goes for latins and gringos who really should know better And by the way long haired dogs are a very bad idea, too
[05:41] Though no one listens to that advice either Anyway about those carpets and rugs Bugs and insects like nothing better than a nice warm carpet Which means of course the cleanest most sanitary houses in latin america are the ones with wood or tile floors And by the way, why not get tikka mahogany floors or that beautiful modern or spanish colonial tile? That stuff's absolutely top-notch quality down here and you can get it for a song And even if you buy the very top-end really expensive stuff in the end It's still a great deal because labor is so damn cheap You can get a very excellent tile setter for about 20 a day Not an hour now a day, but you know that already if you've been listening to this program for any length of time, right?
[06:26] But the trick is always hire a guy that can show you some past jobs that he's done because you see the problem is About 80 of these tile setter guys that don't work for a big company now I'm talking about the little guy the private guy that works out of his house Anyway, anyway, 80 of these guys do not have those expensive electric tile saws with a diamond blade Which means they cannot make really fine precision cuts around pipes and toilets and sinks and stuff So they do it with hand cutters and unpowered tools, which makes for a rough kind of unpolished look Which is great if you're doing an antique spanish tile floor that's supposed to be rustic looking But if you're doing modern tile work in a contemporary styled house or building forget it Your eyes will go to those rough edges every time and you'll be disappointed
[07:14] I repeat always have a look at a guy's previous jobs before you make a deal with him But let's get back to my tv repair story So I have this lcd tv that I bought down here and has a year guarantee. That's run out already So I take it back to the latin american costco, which is pretty smart And I know it's not the remote that's broken because when I brought it back to the store They had the same model tv there and we tried the remote from that tv and it didn't work So obviously the problems in the television electronics or the infrared sensor on the front of the tv So costco being a first world franchise has a repair department policy that states If you drop off a broken television, you have to pay 40 up front to have it diagnosed
[07:59] And that's a deposit basically that will be applied to the cost of the repair when it's finished Now actually that whole procedure of taking the television into costco was kind of a test for me Because about a mile away from the big first world style mall There's an auxiliary road that leads to a scruffy looking middle-class neighborhood In other words chaotic disorderly and pretty much what we would call white trash living up in the first world Which by the way is how about 70 percent of latin america lives? anyway As you drive through this little auxiliary road, there are all kinds of businesses including electronic and appliance repair Stores. In fact, there's a repair shop like that every four or five blocks All of them hole in the wall little dumps with a mass of torn apart tvs and appliances strewn everywhere inside
[08:46] And if you walk in you always have to watch your step because there'll be a mongrel or two living in that space Who's obviously never been house trained and it's an odiferous fact that probably 95 percent of all latins have never even Considered house training their dogs or pets which would be another great business for first world x-pats dog obedience school gringo style of course not latin style So anyway, I took my tv from costco and said no. Thanks. I don't feel like spending 40 to get my remote diagnosed Instead I drove a couple of miles and picked out a scruffy looking mom and pop repair shop at random Well, I take that back. It wasn't exactly a random choice I picked out the one with the nicest sign what I mean is they spelled everything right and the letters were kind of straight
[09:35] Now when I walked into this place with my tv under my arm There was laundry hanging everywhere that I had to dodge my way through And there were a couple of very happy dirty little kids playing video games on one of the tv's the guy was repairing And i'm sure they'd be playing video games on my tv if I left it there any length of time, too Anyway, once I got past the smell of grandma cooking dinner in the kitchen Mixed with the smell of a lot of fresh and stale dog poop I laid my tv on the repairman's test bench and explained about the remote and showed him what was wrong And how much did he want to diagnose the thing? nothing zero Nada, so I gave him my phone number. He called me back the next day and said the repair would cost $14 and yes, it was a broken sensor inside the tv set itself
[10:24] And when I came back to pick up the tv the next day He handed me the receipt for the replacement part that he bought at an electronic warehouse in another part of the city And that was close to eight bucks. So the labor charge to take my tv apart diagnose it Take the replacement part out run down to the electronic supply warehouse install the new one back into the tv test it out Six bucks. That's what he made off the deal kind of So the question comes down to what would the costco repair department have charged me? Well, I wasn't about to spend 40 bucks to find that out. Now you might be thinking Well, johnny's supposed to be an engineer, isn't he? At least you might have heard that and it's true And I was in a past life some quarter century ago, you know And yes, I can fix things like that
[11:10] Like so many people I tried that handyman thing back up in the states because I didn't want to pay the plumber 95 bucks You know, I wasn't afraid to try any repair job at all back then when I was a young homeowner And my mortgage sucked up practically all my disposable income, you know the story But since I don't fix tv's for a living nor would I ever want to It would take maybe four to eight hours for me to get the thing going again Plus I'd have to run around looking for parts and who knows what a wild goose chase that would be And you know, I could do plumbing and window glazing and cement work and carpentry too I've tried all that stuff and I can do it and i'm sure a lot of you listeners are handy men and handy women too But look at it this way when you have the choice between paying a guy 12 or 15 bucks a day
[11:57] To go over your plumbing your electrical or whatever versus let's say sleeping till 10 rolling out of your bed Sitting at the edge of your pool or the beach sucking down pina coladas or world-class coffee Maybe you want to ride or paint or surf the internet all day You could do that or you could play rotor rooter man and snake a plugged up toilet That might be worth it if you lived in the states But down here you could pay a local guy five bucks to do that The fact is you'd have to have a kind of a plumbing fetish to ever want to do that kind of work down here On your own not when you can pay a local plumber 15 bucks a day. Come on, you get the picture However, if you're up in the first world It's eminently worth it if you can do your own electrical or plumbing or window glazing Because any kind of repairs around the house could cost you big money you get a plumber over the house
[12:45] It's going to cost you a hundred bucks for sure just to get him to park in your driveway That means you got to make double that amount of money on your job Just to pay him because when you're in the states or anywhere in the first world You're at least in the 50 tax bracket whether you know it or not and I can prove it But that's another story now. I hope you're beginning to see how all this ties in with that gringo advantage I always talk about I promise if you're off the gringo trail You'll have a ton of time on your hands and it's up to you to make quality use of it Of course, and I warn you you better have some hobbies other than drinking beer and watching sports on tv Or you'll be the most bored guy in paradise. I guarantee you that You'll have a ton of free time on your hands to do things You never could do before because you were too busy making money to pay off the plumber and the electrician
[13:33] Now here's the point when I was a newbie and I first came down here to latin america When I saw these little hole-in-the-wall neighborhood repair shops with the clothes hanging and the dog poop everywhere barefoot kids running around laughing and playing games And piles of garbage and appliance parts strewn all over the place. Well in my mind I thought man This is a nightmare here. I am an organized engineer from the first world Well, at least in a past life. I was kind of organized Anyway, when you walk into one of these places It looks like you're stepping into a mad max movie and you know back then when I first got here I told myself if my stuff breaks, that's the last place i'll ever take it I'll go to a place that looks halfway first world And you know, it took me a long time to realize this but these little guys in their dirty little corner shops can fix
[14:20] Anything and at a quarter of what you'd pay if you took it to a first world place like a seers or a whirlpool Or a sony or a panasonic dealership and the little corner guys like that even give you a guarantee on their work Three or six months usually obviously they keep their prices way down because salaries are so low down here And of course they've got no overhead since whatever kind of shop they run They work basically out of the front room of their houses, which begs the question Where do these little guys in their corner shops learn how to do that stuff? Where do they get the technical expertise to fix a computer or a big screen lcd tv? I mean, it's not like fixing a toaster And it might amaze you and it did me that there are dozens if not hundreds of technical schools in every big latin american city
[15:10] Teaching things like air conditioning auto mechanics appliance repair electronic repairs In fact, whatever courses they teach at technical schools up in the first world, they have it all down here So the truth is a guy might work out of a place that looks like the inside of a dumpster But some of these guys have real talent. So don't judge these guys by appearances Don't sell them short and get this when I asked the young guy who fixed my tv How long he went to technical school and how much he paid for it? He said he went for a year after high school and his tuition cost $55 a month and I have no idea what a technical school like that would cost up in the first world But $55 a month that wouldn't pay for the gas for your car So the bottom line is if you have an appliance under guarantee and the guarantees in effect down here
[15:59] Do take it back to the dealer and get it fixed for free. You've got the guarantee So take advantage of it However, if the idea of saving a whole lot of money appeals to you and if you're like me You don't feel embarrassed or strange walking into average neighborhoods like that and doing business with the folks there Why not give these little mom and pop shops to work? Just tell seers and office depot in costco to go to hell But do dress down and wear your sensible shoes and check your heels for landmines before you hop back into your car Now the question is are these off the tourist trail middle and lower middle-class neighborhoods dangerous to walk in or do business in? Well as a rule, no however If you pull in front of that tv shop and your brand new range rover And you notice that the second nicest car on that whole business strip is a 1989 Honda Civic
[16:48] Then you know you're going to stand out and garner some unwanted attention Not that it's unsafe to be there with a high-end car like that I mean everybody in that neighborhood is just trying to do some business and make a buck like everyone else But the key here is again to be low profile And the thing is when you go into neighborhoods like that and you see happy kids playing on the street and everybody's just kind of getting Along so no matter how rough around the edges or run down the place looks If it's an active place where everybody's doing business and everyone's just getting on with their lives You will be absolutely safe there and in fact because that gringo advantage They'll generally treat you like royalty because chances are when you're off the tourist trail You're probably the very first gringo that's ever walked into their shop and done business
[17:34] And for that matter, you're probably the very first gringo the owners ever had a real conversation with So get ready for old home week when the guy says guess what i've got a brother and a cousin in cincinnati His name is carlos. Enrique. Do you know him? Which just goes to show what a small world local latins live in if they think the us is like a somewhat bigger version of Costa Rica and like Costa Rica eventually if you live there long enough, you're going to run into everyone Latins think that cleveland's about a two-hour bus ride from seattle, which makes them about as brilliant in geography as american kids I mean, what do you say when some latin says to you? Hey, i've got a nephew jose corrado He lives in cincinnati. Do you know him? I mean you want to be nice, but come on The us has about a hundred times the population and 200 times the land mass of costa rica
[18:24] So my advice instead of going into all the particulars just say your cousin jose corrado Doesn't ring a bell, but i'll keep an eye out for him Okay, let's catch up with some more emails here We have george saying are latin americans concerned much with conservation. Are they into recycling? Insulation efficient appliances and things like that Well george, you know, they're not but they should be in fact every single latin house i've been in richapore leaks like a sieve None of them are anywhere near airtight at all. So when someone does install air conditioning, for example I'm sure they pay two maybe three times as much as they have to for their electric bill And related to that i've never seen double pane windows down here either But really when you're in the altiplano region your house can leak like a sieve because you don't need air conditioning or heating
[19:13] So who cares at 3000 to about 7000 feet in altitude? Your climate is always eternal spring weather So if it gets a little cool you wear a light jacket and it never really gets too hot But unfortunately those altiplano regions make up a very small percentage of latin america Most of latin america north of chile and argentina He's just hot and in those hotter inland and coastal areas a lot of businesses and most of the wealthier people have air conditioning But still they haven't got a clue on how to insulate or seal their houses for energy efficiency In fact, if you're going to a big hardware store one that's got practically everything Chances are you still won't be able to locate a single roll of fiberglass insulation Modern building insulation techniques just are not on the radar down here
[20:02] Which I really can't understand because down here in latin america one of the only things that's more expensive than in the first world Is electrical power? But because latins don't have a reference point and don't know that the rest of the world is paying half of what they pay Seems like the better off people and the businesses that can afford air conditioning just pay it It seems like they're blissfully unaware that Insulation choices do exist that could knock their bill down to less than half of what they pay However, I spoke to a contractor about this a guy involved in commercial and residential projects And he told me why none of the builders and contractors ever caught on to doing insulation in a big way Is because almost all modern construction is done with concrete and block So there's no place to stick the insulation Unlike in the united states and europe where almost all new construction is done with wooden or metal stud framing
[20:54] So the skeleton structure of our house is basically designed with tons of empty internal wall space Plenty of room for fiberglass and foam insulation, but that's first world construction and you know, he's right about that It's almost impossible to insulate concrete and block walls There's no place to put the insulation But then I mentioned to him that in the states and in europe you can actually buy your concrete blocks that are pre-loaded with Insulation when they make the block the wet concrete is actually mixed with very small even microscopic Styrofoam like pellets that are great insulators But down here they make blocks the old-fashioned way like they've done for a hundred years and here in latin america It's all about price and insulated blocks are going to be more expensive than cinder block No one's going to buy it just on the promise that's going to save on your air conditioning bill
[21:42] latin's even educated ones aren't big on planning ahead they look at today's bottom line not next year's And as per the middle and lower middle classes who could never afford air conditioning anyway Their houses leak like sieves for good reason to get some air flow going of course But on the same topic i've noticed that there's one very excellent energy saving technique that most middle and upper class latin's use When they build a new house, that is they put skylights in their closets Which means during the day, of course, you don't have to flick the light on when you're selecting your underwear Now i'm not talking about big fancy expensive skylights that open and close with cranks or motors or anything like that These are stationary skylights that are quite small. All you really need is a skylight. That's about one by one foot
[22:29] That's one foot square and with the kind of sunlight you get down here Even that makes your closet extremely bright sometimes. So anything larger is just a waste of effort Now one architect told me that another reason why you don't want to make your skylight Bigger than one foot square in your closet is that if you've got any house thieves in the area They'll never be able to get into an opening that small But he also said if you live in a smaller town or a gated or guarded community you could have a skylight of any size You're never going to have problems with that kind of break-in However, if you live in a big city in a middle or lower middle class neighborhood There's always a chance there'll be some bad boys poking around at night Another reason why us gringos and expats like living in gated communities and in smaller more laid-back towns
[23:16] Oh another thing when renting or buying an existing house down here, here's something you should know The closets almost never have an electrical outlet in them, which I know is standard code up in the first world But it's just that contractors will cut corners everywhere. They can here and that's one thing You'll hardly notice that you've been in a house for a while realizing you don't have an outlet in a closet So that's why if you're ever in a position to build a house of your own Make sure you insist on having an outlet in every closet and also insist that you have at least one dedicated outlet With a ground-fault Interrupter in every bathroom because you see ground-fault interrupters haven't made it down here yet either though They've been around some 30 years or more in the states and europe and they've been code in bathrooms for at least 25 years up north
[24:03] But down here no such luck and why is that because they caused more naturally sure they sell them here in the hardware stores But the average guy has no idea what they do and what they're for They just know they have a red button on them and they're more expensive Oh and make sure you tell your contractor to have a dedicated electrical outlet in your bathroom, too That means both its duplex outlets are available for use at all times Because i'll tell you even in some of the big expensive houses you see down here many many times the contractor Will have skimped out on the electrical all over the house and it's most obvious in the bathroom because you'll see One electrical plate that's got a combined switch and a single stinking outlet on it And that's all you've got available in the bathroom for plugging in anything electrical like a shaver or a hairdryer for example
[24:51] One stinking outlet is never enough and don't think that you could just call up an electrical contractor and say hey I just bought this house and I need extra outlets in my closets and my bathrooms Easier said than done. I mean the guy will come over and do it no doubt But like I mentioned before all decent houses and commercial buildings are made of cement and concrete and block Which means it's a huge project just to put an extra outlet in your bathroom Because they got to blast through the concrete and the block dig out a hole for the new outlet box Hollow out a long deep channel in that concrete and block all along that wall Until it meets up with another existing electrical box where they can tap some wires in
[25:36] Practically your whole house is going to be a bloody mess But that's not the end of it by a long shot Probably the next day or some other day after the wires in the box are all hooked up and attached They'll have to fill in that channel They dug out of the wall with mortar or cement Then you'll have to wait a couple of weeks for it to dry before you can paint over it And let me tell you it's gonna look ugly because no matter how good these cement guys are and how much they try There's always a bit of a mismatch on the final surface texture Between the old part of the wall and the cement filling in that trough And when you're in someone's house You can always spot when that's been done and the only way you're going to get it to match again Is if you have your cement contractor put a thin cap of cement over the whole wall
[26:21] Which is another huge job And because all this update work on an existing structure is such a pain in the ass That's why hardware stores sell so many surface mount electrical boxes and channels You see them a lot in trailer courts and in garages in the states They're little white plastic channels that are mounted on the wall running from electrical box to electrical box Now in the first world, of course, you see them in trailer courts and garages and sometimes in warehouse buildings But down here you see that kind of low budget work everywhere I'll tell you it really cheapens up a nice looking house But you know, it's a lot less work and a lot less expensive than busting holes through your concrete walls And if you're going to build a reasonable facsimile of a first world style house
[27:06] You don't want those surface mount electrical boxes unless they're in your basement or your garage And that's why I do recommend if you buy an existing house Before you move in get all that electrical and concrete busting work out of the way first Even though it's a loud dirty messy job It's very cheap to have it done the right way a job like that is mostly labor And that's what's dirt cheap down here. So do it first and move in later 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 See you next time most famous
[27:55] Ah, she was a picture