#243 – The Expat Files: Pope Francis, Language Immersion, and Life in Latin America

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

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now 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 Now I would be remiss if I didn't say a few words about the new Catholic Pope I mean is there any other kind but Catholic anyway since Latin America is about 90 to 95 percent Catholic That's all they've been talking about lately

[00:46] Overnight he's become a huge star like a resurrected Latin Elvis You know gaudy clothes huge entourage of good old boys And the only thing is he can't sing now, you know, I'm joking about this, but I could never say that in mixed company down here That's one sure way to lose your gringo advantage start beating up on the Pope or the Catholic Church I mean, it seems all expats do it in private, but we're smart enough not to do it in public Especially not in front of the wife or girlfriend or her family Anyway, since he's from Argentina that makes him the very first Pope that's ever come out of Latin America Now some people down here in Latin America say it that was a Vatican plan all along to head off the Evangelical movement at the past because you see it's those Evangelicals that are a big threat to the Catholics down here since every one of those born-again guys seems to be a fallen Catholic

[01:36] And you should never underestimate those evangelical guys because they've been making huge inroads down here Gigantic churches with funky Christian names are popping up everywhere Just like in the States and just like in the States the big ones run by slick snake oil salesmen getting rich Driving limos having bodyguards and even helicopters just like in the States Oh, and I forgot there's always that back door hanky-panky going around too as usual with the most vulnerable and gullible members of the club Only down here. There's no watchdogs and no one to blow the whistle on that kind of stuff unlike those well publicized church scandals You see pop up every couple of months in the States Hey, now there's an idea for a reality show, huh? And it's true Latin Americans have a lot less dough to contribute to those flim-flam guys in suits

[02:25] Promising a spot on that stairway to heaven based on contributions, of course But even though Latin parishioners are poor by our standards There's still huge money in it because remember down here There's 500 million Latin's not to mention if there were a gullibility and superstition scale The average Latin would rate about a nine point five Fertile ground for practically any kind of marketing since you can make any claims you want on TV radio or in the press and there's No oversight or internal or government controls on that either Which if you're a libertarian is a good thing and if you're a socialist or a lemming Not so good and that's why so many Latin's get taken in con games and scams Not to mention every middle-class and lower middle-class neighborhood has its own handful of clairvoyance and fortune tellers

[03:11] And when customers get stiff, there's no recourse for that either Not surprisingly most Latin clients come back for more now I'm not insinuating in any way that expats should come down here and take advantage of the people by using false or misleading marketing There's no need for that at all. Believe me. You've got that gringo advantage. That's enough What I'm saying is that Latin's are down here taking advantage of Latin's It's not gringos and expats playing dirty like that though I know there's a small percentage of expat scammers out there I've met a few and I'll talk about that in a future show. Okay. Anyway, it's just not necessary to BS the Latins And there's no need we're just giving them what they want good service and a touch of the first world And that's why we have such an extraordinary success rate off the tourist track

[04:00] I might add because like I've said a hundred times when you're on the tourist trail Your competition is not the Latins. It's first world gringos So you'll be fighting it out with first world gringos for a smaller piece of the pie. What's the point in that? Oh Man, did I stray from the topic or what but as for that new Pope coming out of Argentina now The point is the Vatican Council that selects the Pope was pretty smart You elect a homeboy and you've got that home court advantage going for you Right. What I mean is you elect a Latin American Pope a homeboy and you put the big kibosh on the growth of Evangelical Christian sex down here all of a sudden Latin American Catholics who are on the fence about walking away from it Have a renewed interest in the faith because they got a homeboy to root for now instead of some guy born

[04:48] 4000 miles away in Poland or Lithuania or Rome a guy who's never even seen much less eaten a bean burrito All right, so far so good now What you don't know is that 19 out of the 20 Latin American countries are? Absolutely, ecstatic that this new Latino Pope from Argentina has been elected But there's one Latin country that he's been getting a lot of bad press in from the get-go and I'll get that in a little while and you know down here Latin America this Pope has two huge things going for him one that of course he's from Latin America and A most unusual quality that this guy has proved positively to the Latin community That is that he's a full-blooded male heterosexual and how do they figure that? That's because he's the first Pope in modern history who almost didn't become a priest at all much less a Pope

[05:36] Very early on in his young adulthood before he became a priest. He was slated to get married Yes, he had a girlfriend and she's still alive and she's out there doing interviews now I've seen her quite a few times being interviewed on Latin TV I'm not saying she's an opportunist. I don't know she probably isn't but I mean look she stands to become a millionaire off the book rights alone I'm sure she'll be on Oprah and in People magazine soon I mean come on how many women can say that they were once engaged to the guy who was actually the Pope She's kind of won her own kind of lottery, you know So history could have taken a drastic turn if he had gotten married, but guess what in the end She turned him down. She broke it off and dumped him Why because he was dead broke and you know in Latin America. It's a very superficial society

[06:21] You are what you wear and what you drive Especially in Argentina and this guy couldn't afford a car far from it. He could barely afford bus fare So she dumped him for a guy who she thought had much better possibilities Little did she know that her jilted ex-boyfriend would be for all intents and purposes The CEO of the richest corporation in the world the Catholic Church In fact, the Catholic Church has about 4,000 or more identifiable corporations And who knows how many offshore secret accounts and their own international bank actually a handful of banks Not to mention he's a top dog in the biggest land-owning organization in the world, too But we all know that so what are Latin Americans really saying about this guy? Besides the fact that in 19 out of the 20 Latin countries They're dancing in the streets at least that's how it is down here in Latin America

[07:09] And I'm sure up in the first world It was nothing but a temporary blip in the news cycle and all the traditional news sources are back to worshiping Obama again My brother tells me that up in the first world that Pope coverage came and went like a coffee anima So anyway what I'm getting at and I know I'm being slightly politically incorrect here. Yeah, like I'm not going straight to hell already Anyway, Latins are saying behind closed doors that it's wonderful that this guy had a girlfriend and nearly got married because that proves 100% at least to them that the new boss ain't the same as the old boss in other words He's not gay or has no gay tendencies Which has been a continuous and problematic rumor down here and it's been all over the internet if you've been paying attention Concerning the Pope that just resigned and I'm not gonna go into any detail on that if you want to know more about it

[07:58] Just get on start page and it'll take two seconds to pop up on a search Anyway, since that gay and pedophile stuff have been ripping through the church like a bad case of Manazuma's revenge The news down here in Latin America that this guy nearly got married and was jilted. Well, that comes as a gigantic relief Folks down here figure he's just a guy to crack the whip on that kind of devious stuff not to mention with his background He might just be the guy to open up the dialogue on that priest marriage thing Which has also been a huge thorn in the side for Catholics of late because something like 10 to 20 percent of all Catholic priests Eventually leave to get married The fact is I've had two cousins who were Catholic priests in my family both skipped out and married nuns So in my family, it's an issue that's pretty close to home

[08:46] But actually, you know in conversations I've had of late with fallen and lapsed Catholics first world Catholics. I'm talking about not Latin's They're pretty much unanimous in thinking that it's like a replay of the Obama election Obama's followers practically canonized him as a saint and a savior and the sum total of good or great deeds that he accomplished In his first term in office. Well, we know how that turned out I guess these days all it takes is cronyism fascism and warmongering to get yourself a Nobel Peace Prize But I digress as usual. Sorry about that Anyway, like I said when I first started blathering about the new Pope I mentioned that 19 out of the 20 Latin American countries are absolutely ecstatic. So why isn't it unanimous?

[09:32] Well, guess who's holding out on the party? Argentina the place the guy comes from and here's why turns out that back in the bad old days of Argentina's brutal dictatorship mostly between 1976 in 1983 this guy the new Pope whose name was Jorge Bergoglio back then well quite a few organized groups in Argentina have been accusing this guy of not using his Substantial power as Cardinal to save some hundreds of civilians and clerics during those years of violence repression and murder under the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla in fact down in Argentina He'd been accused all along by many organized groups including other Christian groups like the episcopalian Conference of being a puppet and a coward in fact Argentina's only Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo

[10:24] Escaville he specifically signals out Cardinal Bergoglio You know the new Pope of having actually participated as an accomplice to the human rights abuses that happened under the dictator Accusing him of being a silent spineless coward while assassinations torture persecutions Disappearances and kidnappings occurred by the thousands including the disappearances and murders of priests and nuns and Catholic Seminarians, so that's what the people are talking about down in Argentina and get this another couple of Argentinos I know told me that the guy has no style no flare like you know a potato without salt You know because of his humble poor upbringing and stuff because you know Argentina's themselves are the uppity ones in Latin America They have a kind of an attitude thinking that they're superior to all other Latin countries because they've got so much European mixed blood

[11:15] Therefore they're the cultured ones and the rest of Latin America just peasants I mean after all they call Buenos Aires the Paris of Latin America You know you hear that all the time But you never hear it in the 19 Latin countries outside of Argentina Only within that country to them the rest of the people in Latin America Just don't count the fact is Argentinos have a severe case of classism and Racism is alive and well there seems to be an impenetrable glass ceiling for anyone sporting a permanent tan So the fact is if you're one of those unfortunate guys the only way to get ahead is one get elected to government office Or to start your own successful business Now classism and racism exist in a big way in all Latin countries

[12:03] But there is one more country that it's quite extreme and that's in Costa Rica They think because you know they call themselves the Switzerland of Latin America that anyone from any other Latin American Country is a low-class hayseed, too Except they all know deep down that Argentinos have a bit more class and they resent him a bit for that they diss him all the time And you can test that theory out yourself by asking any Costa Rican You know what they really think about Argentinos and get ready for an earful Now if you ask a question like that to a middle-class Argentino on the street and you say what do you really think about the people in the rest of Latin America? How do they compare to Argentinos like yourself? Well, I've asked that question to a number of Argentinos and most of the time they just roll their eyes the same way average Americans

[12:49] Roll their eyes when you ask them what they think of the Kardashians Jersey Shore Dennis Rodman or Donald Trump's hair you get the idea and one final thing about the Pope who they call the Papa down here with A capital P p a p a now if you don't know much Spanish at all you come down here and you start learning it Picking it up little by little by reading street signs and newspaper Headlines and ads and restaurant menus eventually you'll come to realize that the word Papa is pronounced and spelled exactly Like the Spanish word for potato So a Papa is a potato and it's a Pope and it always strikes me funny and someday It'll strike you funny too when you walk into a restaurant and you come to the realization that when you order Papa's fritas

[13:35] You could be ordering either french fries or fried Pope Depending on your mindset or if you order Papa or nialo You could be ordering a baked potato or if you have a zombie mindset Baked Pope and on that menu. You'll also find poor a the Papa which means mashed potatoes But in that alternate universe means mashed Pope and of course Latins Don't think that's funny at all and again something you never want to bring up in mixed company even though to me It would be great stand-up comedy material, you know But only in the first world. So what do I have to say about that? Well, I'll have my Pope with sour cream if you don't mind Enough said about that now if you remember a couple of weeks ago I was talking about the best ways to learn your Spanish not by drips and drabs an hour a day at a school

[14:24] Or taking an internet course or downloading a Spanish course on your iPod Those are all good in their own way But doing it that way could take years to become proficient and people always ask me how do you know when you're proficient? Well, I'll tell you it's when you're in a store or a bank or you're on an elevator And you realize that someone has made a comment about you and you understand it because after all you are the oddball gringo in Their world and I can tell you this 99% of the time they're saying something nice They're complementing your eyes or your height or just the fact that you happen to be there and there's another surefire Way that you know, you're really getting fluent in Spanish That's when you call back to someone up in the States and as you're dabbing away You realize you let a couple of Spanish words slip out without even realizing it and when that happens

[15:13] You're well on your way and another thing for some people who are a little bit slow in the mental processing department like me Becoming really fluent could take up to five years or even more of just slogging around through Latin America That is if you're not taking any formal lessons or you don't have a significant other that doesn't speak English at all to practice with And beat it into your head Now that's a good way to learn your Spanish in a hurry under those circumstances You could learn your Spanish in about four to six months without taking a single lesson Anyway, most people don't have that option at least not right away because to tell you the truth you almost never see a gringo latina love match or vice versa with expats who Just get down here unless you happen to be on the tourist trail like for example in Costa Rica

[15:58] And then you have to wonder if it's really a love match or just his or her love for your wallet or for a green card But when you're off the tourist trail, like I always recommend expats are generally too busy taking in the experience of being thrown into a completely different culture Generally, it's enough learning how to get a taxi order food and how to shag down a roll of toilet paper It's either truth most gringo gringo and vice versa love matches Don't happen till an expat's been down here six months or more and is finally feeling his or her way through the system You know getting comfortable with the environment first because I'll tell you it's a very difficult thing if you hook up with someone who speaks Absolutely, no English and you don't speak any Spanish and you're sitting in a room full of their relatives and not a one

[16:46] Can communicate with you, and I'm telling you if you hook up with a non-english speaker That's what your weekends are gonna be like because Latin society is all about the family And I'll talk a lot more about that subject in a future show But for now, let me just remind you that hooking up with a significant other that speaks nothing, but Spanish Well, that's a great way to learn your Spanish in a hurry, and you'll have it down in four to six months It always happens like that, but for that first month. You're gonna feel like you're getting verbally waterboarded Sometimes you're gonna feel like your heads in a meat grinder and everyone in his or her extended family is cranking on the handle But in the end, it's absolutely worth it in more ways than one and I will talk about that in detail later Anyway, I did mention in a previous show about what I called boot camp Spanish

[17:32] I mean there really is a way to learn pretty good conversational Spanish in about two months if you Absolutely immerse yourself and don't have any contact with people that speak English and that includes completely avoiding English language TV Movies newspapers and even music it's mighty tough, and that's why I call it Spanish language boot camp In fact, I know a guy from Madison, Wisconsin who became about 95% fluent in Conversational Spanish in only one month by doing the boot camp way and after two months He was so fluent that he applied for a job Advertised on the internet at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico and became an undergrad electrical engineering instructor Teaching classrooms full of undergrad Latins in Spanish exclusively now this guy of course was an exceptional case

[18:22] But it just goes to show you it can be done anyway when I spoke on a recent show about applying boot camp Spanish So that you could learn good conversational Spanish in about two months I received a number of emails from people who said they were doing or about to do just that now remember There's no such thing as an actual boot camp Spanish course if you look it up on the internet But you know there's a great business idea for any of you expats or expat wannabes, huh? Since just those words boot camp Spanish course says it all and if you put together such a program and make a solid guarantee I'm sure in no time. You'll be rolling in the dough anyway Let me read you this email from a good friend of ours named John who came to one of my expat wisdom Seminars and has been back and forth to Latin America ever since and now he's reporting on his own boot camp experience

[19:11] And it's got some good suggestions, so listen to this he says hey Johnny. I'm in Chella right now That's XE LA now before I go on let me explain Chella XE LA is in the Altiplano region of Guatemala about 6,000 feet up with perfect spring like weather all year round And sometimes even a little chilly anyway. It's a great place to become an expat It's dirt cheap, and it's well off your normal tourist track in fact Any place in Guatemala is well off your normal tourist track though in Chella You do see a small trickle of tourists many your Christian do-gooder types and a fair dose of eco backpackers But no real Costa Rica or Panama style tourism at all anyway John says I'm in Chella right now been here for a couple of weeks doing my best to do the Spanish boot camp thing

[20:02] It's hard. Let me tell you but to the extent you can do it it really works Having actually gone through basic training with the US Air Force back in the 70s I can tell you that you find yourself having the same reaction from time to time for example Occasionally you ask yourself what the hell am I doing here or man? This is the biggest mistake of my entire life But those are just passing phases and it all gets better after a while Then it gets worse again then better and so on but eventually you realize hey I think I'm getting the hang of this Spanish stuff now. I have a few recommendations I could pass along but for now. I'll just relate one Be real careful with the living with a family thing

[20:47] You may remember that I've traveled a little in Thailand over the years But I realized after I moved in with my Spanish family that I had broken my first rule of traveling on the cheap That I learned the hard way years ago in Asia Always always asked to see the room before you give them the money I found out a long time ago in Asia that in the smaller off the tourist trail joints once you give them your money It's theirs After they show you the room if you don't like it you run the risk of creating an international Incident trying to get your dough back So I learned to always ask to see the room before I forked over the cash You find out all kinds of things that way like whether the room is just big enough for you and your suitcase

[21:36] Or whether you have to climb five flights of stairs to get there whether the common bathroom is two flights down from yours, etc, etc, and Let me just stop this email a second and add a point myself Now years ago when I lived with an immersion family I neglected to take a look at the bathroom too and and guess what there was no top on the toilet tank Well, that was because every time you wanted to use to John you had to take a plastic bucket That was alongside the toilet walk out to the backyard garden Which is like a hundred paces away and dip that bucket into a wash basin out back Carry the water back to the bathroom and fill up the tank because if you didn't do that you wouldn't get a flush Which I learned the hard way the first time I took the royal position, you know

[22:21] And then after a couple of days of doing that I thought I was so smart I went into the garden filled up the bucket loaded up the toilet tank went back out to the garden for a second To feed that poor toucan that was caged out back I'd saved the poor guy a piece of papaya from the night before and in that three or four minutes It took me to feed that bird one of the kids in the family snuck in the bathroom and use my water Oh and one important point families like that. Do not use air freshener. It's too expensive. So bring your own or light a match Okay, so we left off where John's email said always see the room and the bathroom first before you hand over the money Anyway, he goes on to say hooking up with a family through a Spanish school breaks that rule, too At least the way the two schools I've been to here have set it up

[23:10] They want you to elect whether to stay with a family or not when you pay for your classes up front That could be a bad move the schools have some minimum standards for what the families have to provide But they're really minimum and broadly interpreted But I'd advise anybody interested in the family experience to consider asking to view the proposed Accommodations first maybe I should add that I'm not a real picky or a dainty guy I can handle pretty basic accommodations But part of the potential problem with the family thing is that you're signed on for a week and a week can get to be A little long under some circumstances then again I guess you could just leave after the first day if you don't like to set up But that would certainly insult a family and these folks are pretty nice. So you probably wouldn't want to do that

[24:00] I'd recommend that people consider looking for a hostile to stay and with a Spanish speaking owner Attendant as an alternative one that doesn't have a bunch of English speakers staying there I found one here in Chella and I bet there are some in Antigua as well He's talking about Antigua Guatemala, which is about a four and a half hour drive away And it has a ton of Spanish schools and immersion family situations, too Anyway, I just thought I'd drop you this note from the road. Hasta la vista John now I neglected to mention that Johnson engineer to a very smart and worldly guy You know if you're stuck on a desert island or lost in the jungle He's the guy you want to be with not an English major, you know, nothing against English majors There'll be some good conversation, but you'll end up eating dirt and drinking your own urine

[24:46] And how do I know that well it happened to an expat friend of mine and you can bet I'll tell that story later Now let me just mention once again that when you're way off the tourist trail like in Chella, Guatemala You'll pay about half as much or less than you would in a high-volume tourist area like Costa Rica And since there are so many English speakers in Costa Rica You'll never be able to take full advantage of the boot camp method I'm talking about and I also should mention that in places like Chella, Guatemala and Copan, Honduras Which is also a really cool place to do immersion You can do a lot of haggling with your immersion family on the money and you could do quite a bit of haggling with the Spanish Schools themselves don't forget there's a worldwide recession and that includes Latin America Less and less people are coming down here on vacation and to invest and just bum around

[25:35] So except during the very high season and that's always during the month of Easter Yep, they celebrated for a whole month here and of course the week of Christmas Those are the two high seasons in most all of Latin America So don't expect to get any deals with hotels or anything else during that time But remember that's only five weeks out of the year But any other time you've got great bargaining power My standard formula for bargaining is you ask them their price then you offer them half of that and work your way up from there Now sometimes you don't have to work your way up much at all and what seems to work quite Well, most of the time is you pull your cash out and you show it to them right there in their face and say look This is all I've got budgeted for the month 400 bucks. Take it or leave it now this little maneuver works really well in mom-and-pop hotels too because if

[26:22] They've got empty rooms and they'll always have empty rooms off season if they want 55 bucks a night They'll likely take 30. It's either your 30 bucks or nothing. Oh and one more thing always I mean always ask the hotel if breakfast is included with your price because down here in Latin America Unless you're really on a backpacker budget and you're going really spartan many many hotels that are two star and up will include a nice Breakfast and some of them will give you such a nice buffet breakfast You won't believe it so often you could get a beautiful room for 38 or 40 bucks and get an all-you-can-eat breakfast That could be worth 15 to 20 bucks in the States So remember sometimes if you're on a tight budget and 40 or even 50 bucks seems like a lot to pay for a hotel I know that's not a lot in the first world, but down here off the tourist track

[27:09] That'll buy you an awful lot of hotel believe me But remember if you're paying 40 or 50 bucks sometimes you'll get such a nice breakfast It'll end up being your lunch, too So think of what you're saving in the long run and like Eddie says always wear pants with deep pockets That way you can load them up with bakery and croissants when no one's looking. Oh, I take that back That was the old Eddie talking before he owned a chain of restaurants That 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