Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller dives into the topic of gasoline prices in Latin America, discussing how government subsidies and taxes impact consumers. He also shares personal anecdotes about political corruption, cultural norms, and the challenges of daily life in the region. From gas station encounters with high-profile individuals to the issue of littering and the use of derogatory terms, Johnny provides a candid look at the realities of expat life in Latin America.
Johnny begins by discussing the availability of past episodes, mentioning the website expatwisdom.com and the Progressive Radio Network (prn.fm) as sources for the show. He explains that while expatwisdom.com offers higher quality audio files, prn.fm hosts all of his shows, albeit in smaller file sizes. He also touches on gasoline prices in Latin America, noting that prices vary significantly between countries, with Venezuela having the lowest prices due to government subsidies, while other countries like Chile and Brazil have much higher prices.
He then discusses the disparity between the actual cost of gasoline and what consumers pay, attributing the difference to government taxes. He highlights the rising gas prices in some countries and the resulting social and economic effects. Johnny recounts an anecdote about a gas station encounter with a group of high-profile individuals, emphasizing the corruption and inefficiency in the region.
In another segment, Johnny shares a humorous and revealing anecdote about his experience at a Shell gas station in Latin America, where he witnessed a government official and his bodyguard pay for gas with a wad of cash, throwing money at the attendant and cursing him. The attendant, a small-time employee, was clearly embarrassed and upset. Johnny then engages in a conversation with the attendant, who explains that many government departments and private businesses in the region are on a list of 'good credit' customers, and that the government is often considered a deadbeat. He shares his own experiences of being unpaid by government contracts in Costa Rica and Guatemala, highlighting the common issue of bounced checks and the lack of credit systems in the region.
The episode also touches on the issue of littering in Latin American cities, attributing it to a lack of enforcement and cultural norms. Johnny describes a specific incident where a McDonald's bag was thrown out of a vehicle, which he uses to criticize the behavior of the local population and the lack of effective anti-littering measures. He explains how the design of roads in Latin America, despite following international standards, often leads to flooding due to the accumulation of garbage in drainage systems. He contrasts this with the United States and Canada, where anti-littering campaigns eventually led to behavioral change, but notes that in Latin America, such campaigns have had little effect due to the absence of real enforcement.
Johnny also discusses the common practice of throwing garbage out of vehicles, including 'chicken buses,' and references an incident where expat Eddie found disposable diapers in his windshield. He explains that police in Latin America often do not enforce littering laws due to their own socioeconomic background and habits. He also touches on the social dynamics of indigenous populations in Latin America, explaining that the poorest groups often have the highest indigenous blood percentage and are neglected by governments. He elaborates on the derogatory term 'Indio' and its use as an insult, noting that indigenous people themselves rarely use it. Johnny shares personal anecdotes about hearing the term in Costa Rica and its use to insult Nicaraguans.
The episode concludes with Johnny addressing the term 'gringo' in Latin America, explaining that it is generally neutral but can carry different connotations depending on context and tone. He notes that in casual settings, it can be a friendly greeting, but in professional contexts, it may be too informal. Johnny also explores the use of the word 'hombre' and how it can be used in various ways, highlighting cultural differences in communication between expats and locals.
Topics
Podcast availability, Gasoline prices in Latin America, Government subsidies for fuel, Government taxation and corruption, Social and economic effects of rising gas prices, Anecdotal evidence of political corruption, Government corruption and deadbeats in Latin America, Cultural norms and practices in Latin America, Personal experiences and anecdotes, Economic and financial issues in Latin America, Littering in Latin America, Road design and flooding
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:01:33 Availability of Past Episodes 00:03:45 Gasoline Prices in Latin America 00:05:43 The Disparity in Gasoline Prices in Latin America 00:08:58 The Impact of Rising Gas Prices and Government Corruption 00:10:51 The Scene at the Shell Station: A Disgraceful Payment Method 00:11:14 The Attendant's Embarrassment and Johnny's Attempt to Help 00:12:01 Johnny's Personal Experience with Government Deadbeats 00:14:10 The Cultural Norm of Not Accepting Checks in Latin America 00:15:28 Following the Diplomatic Convoy: A Humorous Experience 00:15:52 The McDonald's Bag Incident and Criticism of Local Behavior 00:16:48 Flooding Due to Poor Drainage and Littering 00:19:08 The Challenge of Changing Littering Habits in Latin America 00:20:35 Littering in Latin America: The Problem and Its Consequences 00:21:01 Why Police Don't Enforce Littering Laws: A Socioeconomic Insight 00:21:35 The Derogatory Term 'Indio': A Social and Cultural Insight 00:25:19 The Term 'Gringo' in Latin America 00:25:20 Understanding the Use of 'Gringo' 00:25:24 Cultural Nuances in Language
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:14] Hello there all you expat wannabes, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the Expat Files, living in Latin America. The show that tells you just what it's like to live, work, play and or retire down here in Latin America. It's a mix of the good, the bad, the ugly and the great and it's all right here so let's get started. Now, today before I get rocking, I promised certain people I'd mention a few things. And whether you think they're interesting or not, who knows, but here goes. First of all, if you've been to the expatwisdom.com website, which I highly recommend you visit because there's a few free reports on there and some other cool things, and don't forget that big healthcare report that I'm putting together right now, that'll be up at expatwisdom.com in a week or so. And I'll let you know when that happens. Anyway, I do get a lot of emails from people asking me about my old shows because as you
[01:02] may or may not know, I've done about 277 shows so far, about three years worth. But not all of them are available on expatwisdom.com and I really don't know how many shows they post on the other sites that you can get my program, like Stitcher and iTunes and some sites I don't even know about, though I have to tell you that the shows you do get on expatwisdom.com are the best audio quality by far of all the sites you can get the show from. They're larger files at a higher bitrate, so they're radio broadcast quality. Which brings me to the reason I brought this up in the first place. From what I understand, you can only get about a hundred of my most recent shows off of expatwisdom.com and people always email and ask me how they can get the other 150 or 175 shows or so,
[01:49] which tells me that those people don't know about prn.fm. The Progressive Radio Network, which is the biggest podcast radio network in the world. Now I'm on that station twice a week on Friday and Sunday and what's cool about prn.fm is that they tell me it gets over 20 million hits on the website a week. Yeah I know 20 million is hard to believe, but that's what they tell me. And of course only a fraction of those hit on my program because they've got over 50 shows on the roster. Anyway, if you go to prn.fm or search the Progressive Radio Network, then when you get to the homepage, click on the archive link, you'll see all the shows that are on prn radio, including mine. So if you click on the archives and then click on the expat files, you can get every one
[02:38] of my expat files shows, all 270 something of them. Now because there's so many of them, they're in smaller files than the ones you'd get at expatwisdom.com. That is 6 to 10 megabytes each, instead of the usual about 30 to 32 megabytes. So they're not going to be in radio broadcast fidelity, but decent enough in who cares anyway, right? So just to let you guys know, anyone who wants to catch up on shows that don't show up on expatwisdom.com, just go to prn.fm. That's the Progressive Radio Network out of New York and of course they're free too. But also remember that when you pick up the latest show on expatwisdom.com, it's always a few days, a week or even two weeks ahead of the show's broadcast on prn.fm. That's because expatwisdom.com gets my shows right away, sometimes within an hour after
[03:28] I've recorded them, whereas the shows on prn.fm are only posted for you to download after the show has been broadcast in its regular Friday or Sunday time slot. And now that you're totally confused, let's talk about gasoline and pump prices in Latin America. Well as of today, in most of the Latin American countries, a gallon of regular gasoline is hovering around 5 bucks a gallon. Now in Argentina, where everything's more expensive, it's around 6 bucks or so a gallon. And in Chile, a place that's first world expensive, even more so, you're looking at around 7 bucks a gallon, twice what it is in the States. And in Brazil, which is also quite expensive these days, it's around 6 bucks a gallon. I take that back, Brazil is extremely expensive. In fact if you buy anything that's imported from outside the region, expect to pay twice
[04:16] or even more than you'd pay for it in Cleveland. In other words, a $15,000 Hyundai will cost you 30 grand in Brazil. Now that's in huge contrast to Venezuela, it's still under 10 cents a gallon. And for years, the government's been subsidizing it to the extreme, basically to keep the population from rioting. And nowadays, it seems like gasoline is about the only thing that's cheap in Venezuela. But you know that already if you've been paying attention to what's been happening down there lately. Now Venezuela is not the only Latin American country that subsidizes its petroleum products. And again, it's a political move staged to keep the low income folks who make up the majority of the population from taken to the streets. And the fact is, governments in those countries can't afford to give out those subsidies anymore, and lately have been trying to cut back.
[05:03] But they found out as soon as they start talking about it in Congress, people take to the streets in huge numbers because they've become so accustomed to the ultra low gas prices. So basically these governments have created a monster that they can't control. So what else is new? In fact, just this past year that happened in Bolivia, another country with huge government gas subsidies that they no longer can afford. And right now it's about 2 bucks a gallon there. Now the Dominican Republic and Ecuador also subsidize gasoline. So their price is around 2 to 250 a gallon. And like I said, throughout the rest of Latin America, gasoline prices for regular are hovering around 5 bucks a gallon. But did you know that the spot price today for a gallon of regular gas is about $2.75? Yep, that's what those big gas station chains like Texaco and Shell pay for it.
[05:53] Then they add their little markup, which isn't much, maybe 10 to 25 cents. So in fact, every cent you pay over about 3 bucks a gallon is a pure tax levied by somebody's thieving government. Now the reason I bring this up is that just in the last couple of weeks, gasoline has popped over the $5 mark in some countries for the very first time, and it seems to be causing some unsettling secondary effects. For example, the other day I saw something that would have been way out of the ordinary had it happened a few weeks or months ago, but it's becoming more and more the norm. As gas prices at the pump go higher and higher. Now this happened the other day when I went into a Shell station to pump my own gas, which I always do at the self-serve. So I pulled up to one of the self-serve pumps, got out of my car and went up to the kiosk
[06:40] to pay, like you always do before you pump your gas. That's when I noticed something odd was happening at one of the other self-service pumps. And by the way, gas pumps and basically pumps of all kinds are called bombas. So the pump is la bomba. And if an attendant is pumping your gas, he'll say zerro la bomba, which means he's just zeroed it out for you before he starts pumping. Now y'all might recognize la bomba from that famous Richie Valens song, la bomba. Now some Spanish words, just like some English words, have double definitions, and la bomba means the pump and it means the bomb. So if one day some Latin person says to you, gringo, cuidado, la bomba. Well that could mean look out for the pump, gringo, or look out for the bomb. Anyway as for that strange thing I saw the other day at a shell station, well it was
[07:28] like this. All of a sudden three jet black bulletproof SUVs pull up, and these were expensive new Mercedes with diplomatic plates on them and jet black windows. Which means it was a caravan of scum of the earth thieving politicians. What else? And all three pulled up behind each other in the self-service line at the gas station, which is strange enough because these guys never pumped their own gas. That would be unheard of. Then the bodyguard and the driver from the first car jumped out of the front seat. And these guys were all decked out, expensive black suits, earbuds like the FBI that probably didn't work, Ray-Ban sunglasses probably real, with dead serious looks on their faces, surveying the rest of us peons at the gas station, like what they were doing was oh so important.
[08:17] Totally convinced that they weren't just shuttling around a bunch of parasitic maggots. What a joke huh? Anyway you wouldn't believe it, but those two guys spent the next 5 or 10 minutes standing around as one of the gas station attendants filled up those cars at the self-service pump. And you know there's something wrong there because the self-service pump is, well, self-service, but instead they requisitioned one of the attendants from his job at the full service pump to come pump their gas. And though he technically wasn't supposed to do that, he was intimidated so he buckled. Now it didn't matter to these jerks that the rest of the people in the full service line were being inconvenienced, they didn't have anyone to pump their gas. But here's the best part, and believe me this says volume is about third world governments. While I was standing in the little line at the kiosk to pay, one of the bodyguards in
[09:07] front of me was trying to settle up the account and the credit card reader rejected his plastic. In fact, rejected two of his credit cards in a row. Oh the shame and the embarrassment right? Well maybe up in the states it is, but not down here. That kind of thing is such a common occurrence nobody is fazed by it here. But you still have to pay somehow. Now the little guy collecting the dough in the kiosk made a big mistake by letting those government jerks fill up their vehicles before paying in advance, like the rest of us normal people have to do. But that little guy of course was intimidated and pressured into it too. Then the deadbeat bodyguard tried to pull rank on the little guy in the kiosk. But the little guy would have none of it, he was getting nervous, he wanted his money.
[09:55] Because you see at gas stations and a lot of retail places in Latin America, if at the end of the night the accounts don't match, the little guy or gal that handles the money gets their pay docked. And I know that would be illegal up in the states, but down here they do it all the time. And it might be illegal down here too, but that's why they call it the third world, right? Anyway, the well-dressed bodyguard, thoroughly pissed off by now, walked back to the lead car, stuck his head in the window, and I don't know what happened because I was too far away to hear what was going on, but I would have liked to have been a fly on the dashboard. And then get this, the guy in the back seat, who I couldn't see, obviously the diplomat, handed the guy a fistful of cash. I could see that much. And I could also see that the VIP was pissed off by the way he was shaking his fist when
[10:42] he handed over the door. Then the bodyguard walked over to the second car in line. He poked his head into one of those windows, and then the guy in the back seat of that car handed over a wad of cash too. Then the bodyguard came back up to the kiosk in his place, in front of me, and basically threw the money at the little guy behind the window. In fact, he had to pick some of it off the floor. And before that guy left to get back in the lead car, he cursed out the poor little guy in the kiosk. Like it was his fault that these guys were deadbeats. Now I was next in line, and the little guy had turned 17 colors of red in the meantime. I tried to help the kid save face by saying, what a bunch of pompous jerks. In Spanish, of course. And I kept the conversation up trying to break the tension, you know?
[11:29] Then I said, don't those government jerks have an account with Shell that they can just sign off? So you don't have to go through all that crap? Then the little guy said yes. Some people can sign for their gas, and we bill them at the end of the month. But some of the government departments and private businesses that were once on it, if they pay late, bounce checks, or have bad credit, they get bumped. Then the little guy motioned to the wall, and there was a list there of people and businesses who had good credit and could sign. So what this guy was saying is that basically, the government is a deadbeat. And I should know, because I was a victim of the very same thing myself. Not once, but twice. And I almost got stung a third time, but I wizened up. Latin governments not only don't pay their bills on time, sometimes even if you have
[12:16] a contract, you won't get paid at all. Now I mentioned in a past show a long time ago, I once had a government contract to do radio voiceovers for both the Costa Rican and the Guatemalan Department of Tourism. And in the end, in both cases, I never got paid. Well I take that back. One of them actually did issue me a government check, but the bank wouldn't cash it. Because get this, that particular account in the Department of Tourism had insufficient funds. How's that grab ya? Now on a third occasion, the Costa Rican government wanted to rent some storage buildings from me to house the artwork of some visiting artists from South America. At the time, Costa Rica was preparing to host a big international art fair. But I couldn't accommodate them at the time, because the units were filled.
[13:01] And later on, a friend of mine, who I referred them to, who had some storage units himself, he took the contract and never got paid. And that was more than a dozen years ago, and my friend, or I should say my ex-friend, is still pissed off at me for the referral. And one of the things you'll notice right away when you're down in Latin America, is that many, many stores and businesses, from the smallest to the biggest, even many first world franchises, will not accept checks of any kind. And they'll have a sign saying so above the cash register. Cash or credit cards only. And that's because private businesses have been burned so many times with bad checks. And when they bounce, the business not only loses the dough, but they get stuck with the processing charges. In fact, that's one of the reasons why Latins love working for gringo so much, because our
[13:47] checks don't bounce. And you'll almost never hear a gringo say to his employees, please don't cash this check till Tuesday, because right now, I don't have funds in the account. Now, if an average gringo bounces a check, it's an embarrassing, stressful event that can ruin your whole day, or worse. But for Latins, a bounced check is like a hiccup that's gone in two seconds. Nothing more. And since credit bureaus are in their infancy down here in Latin America and not well connected to banks, lending institutions, or businesses at all, for now anyway, a bounced check has no influence on their credit rating. Oh, and about that little incident at the Shell station, I forgot to tell you what happened next. Now, I got back on the road and believe it or not, within about five or six minutes, my car was right behind those three black SUVs.
[14:35] And I was right behind them again at the next red light. Now, apparently, these diplomatic dirtbags were getting very impatient with the traffic. I mean, it was a three-lane highway and a very busy street. And these guys are so important, they just have to get ahead of the rest of us peons. God forbid they show up late for happy hour at the VIP strip club, you know? And I'm not kidding about that. It's well known that many of the strip clubs in Latin America are owned secretly by senators and congressmen. That way, any night they want, they can close the joint to the public when they feel like having a private party to entertain their friends. Anyway, the next thing you know, they flick on their emergency flashers and a little siren. Yep, these guys were so important, they have little accessories like that built into their cars too.
[15:20] Just like an FBI escort in the movies. And now, with the flashing lights and sirens, they proceeded to go through the red light. I thought, hmm, cool, because every time I see a VIP caravan like that with those flashing lights, I just sneak in behind and push up the rear and make my way through the crowd along with them. Why not? You should try it yourself sometime. So anyway, I'm steaming ahead with these guys, passing everyone else like nothing. Then after about 5 or 6 minutes of that, someone in the backseat of the last SUV rolled the window halfway down and tossed out a big old McDonald's bag filled with garbage. Yep, and that's the class of scumbag that gets elected down here in the third world. Those are the idiots that are running these countries. And with that kind of example from up on high, shoved in the face of the public, day in and
[16:10] day out, it's no wonder the streets and sidewalks in the cities of Latin America are just filled with garbage. Now, if you live in a city, or drive around in a city for any length of time, you're bound to see the very same kind of littering from people at all levels of society. In fact, I can tell you, when I'm in a Latin city, not a day goes by, when I don't see someone throwing their garbage out of a vehicle window, or a guy walking down the street throwing a soda bottle into a gutter that's already filled with soda bottles and other rancid trash. And believe it or not, looking at this whole thing with an engineer's eyes, I can see why during the rainy season, so many streets just get flooded out like lakes, adding even more chaos to the already terrible traffic problems here. And of course I'm talking about the cities, not out in the boonies. Now as you'd expect, when civil engineers design road drainage, they consult the usual
[17:00] civil engineering books on road construction and the norms and the rules required, always taking into account the rainfall for the region. And in fact, that's so old school that those international rules and regulations on road building have been around for like 70 or 80 years. And internationally, they've always worked well and have stood the test of time as long as you follow the books, except, guess where, in Latin America. And even with severe downpours like you see in Latin America during the rainy season, and even flash floods, it's really a no-brainer for a civil engineer or a road construction boss. It's simple, you just plug in the numbers and design according to international regs. Anyway, that's what the common man would suppose, correct? But you see, the international books regarding road design and drainage and pitch were written
[17:48] by first world engineers who lived in Chicago, London and New York, and maybe even one or two of them were from Cleveland. But the fact is, it seems like the engineers who wrote those books had never been to Latin America, where unfortunately, everyone, and I mean everyone, is a chronic litter bug. And where do you think all those papers and cans and bottles and McDonald's wrappers end up? In the drainage ditches and water vents in the streets. And that's why a perfectly well designed brand new road with engineers following all the international regulations will often, during the rainy season, turn into a lake so deep that you would never chance driving your car through it. Now I gotta tell ya, that particular situation has happened to me at least a half a dozen times a year.
[18:33] And when that happens, I've gotta stop my car, turn around and find another route out. That's if you can even make a U-turn. Or take a chance on having the water actually enter your car. Which sad to say has happened to me a few times too. I've had my floor mats soaked a number of times. So how about you? How many times a year are you confronted with a lake that used to be a road? Well I'd have to say unless you've been through something like Katrina, you probably haven't been in that situation more than 5 or 10 times in your whole life. So the question is, how do you get a half a billion people, that's the population of Latin America by the way, to learn how to clean up after themselves and their environment? I mean we did it, up in the states and Canada. We were grade A litterbugs back in the 40s, 50s and 60s. And then came those big ad campaigns in schools, billboards, radio and TV.
[19:23] Don't be a litterbug, remember? And after a while, we quit doing it. But just like that seatbelt law, we really didn't take it seriously until we actually got pulled over by the cops and fined. Same thing about that law against using a cell phone in the car. People won't stop doing that until they get a ticket. And sure, all over Latin America, there are anti-littering campaigns everywhere. You see it on TV and billboards and the schools and all that. But it doesn't seem to have made a dent in the problem. And why is that? Because no one, I mean no one, ever gets pulled over, stopped, ticketed or fined. And you know, I always get a kick out of it. When I'm driving and I see a big pile of garbage and rubbish and crap alongside the road, and there's a sign posted, obviously by the government, that says there's a $25 or $50 fine for tossing
[20:12] your garbage there. And every time I drive by the place, the amount of garbage gets taller and deeper. Then soon enough, the cats and dogs and birds appear. And then a few human scavengers. And by then it's become a convenient, unofficial community dump. And I guess there's got to be 20 or 30 thousand of those throughout Latin America. So like I said, a day doesn't go by when I'm in the city driving where I don't see someone right in front of me toss a lot of garbage out the window of his vehicle. And the worst offenders, chicken buses. You get behind one of those things long enough and I don't recommend it. Your windshield might not just get plastered with the usual junk food wrappers and crap. But get this, even disposable diapers. Yep, it happened to expat Eddie and it wasn't pretty. So if the rules are in place and everybody knows about them, what about the cops?
[20:59] Why aren't they stopping people? It's because the cops themselves come from the lower classes in society. In fact, they treat their police cruisers like their own personal dumpster. Yep I've been behind cops who've tossed junk out the windows themselves. I mean look, they don't stop cars, trucks and chicken buses that run red lights. Or if you have a broken windshield or your headlights or taillights are burnt out. They don't care. Or no windshield at all for that matter. And they don't stop you or fine you if the vehicle's belching enough smoke to cause a nuclear winter. Like somebody once said, ignorance can be cured but stupidity is a lifelong affliction. And now a Latin sociology lesson. You may or may not be aware of the fact that about 30 to 40 percent of Latin Americans are of pure or mixed indigenous blood.
[21:47] And the unfortunate fact is that the very poorest groups of Latin people have the most indigenous blood. So the pure blood indigenous people, the ones that often wear traditional tribal colors and homemade fabrics and stuff, they're the poorest Latin Americans of all and the most neglected by their governments. Though the black Latin Caribbean populations might argue that they're at the bottom of the heap. And in some ways they are. Anyway, the central governments are made up of people with almost no indigenous component so government officials pretty much ignore the indigenous people altogether except at election time. Now note that Latins insult each other with the word Indio. And it's a very strong insult. That's Indio. I-N-D-I-O. And by the way they want to be referred to as indigenous people or simply Latinos.
[22:34] Now here in Latin America if you were to call someone an Indio to his face, you're in for big trouble. In a way it's worse than using the N word up in the states since black people up there say it to each other all the time and use it indiscriminately in rap songs and stuff. Whereas the indigenous people down here in Latin America just don't say it to each other. So let me repeat, you won't hear the I word used by anyone that's truly indigenous or has a high percentage of indigenous blood. Now the funny thing is when I first got down here to Latin America I heard that word quite a bit. I'd hear it at middle and upper class parties and get togethers where there were no indigenous people. For example the first time I remember hearing it was when I was at a barbecue at an upper middle class guy's house and the guy who was cooking steaks and chicken out on the
[23:19] barbecue in the backyard, I remember he flipped a piece of meat over and it landed on the ground and the guy right next to him and looked at him and said Indio and they both laughed at that joke between buddies. Then I remember high school and college age kids at bars and discos using the word Indio amongst themselves anytime one of them did something foolish like spill a drink or fart or just do something embarrassing that caught the attention of the rest of the crowd. Oh and something else, you know my first couple years in Latin America were in Costa Rica and they have virtually no indigenous people there. For some mostly geographic reason the Mayans and the other indigenous tribes never set up housekeeping or built any monuments in Costa Rica or Panama for that matter. Which means the settlers with Spanish blood did not have any indigenous people to pick
[24:08] on. Instead they picked on and insulted their black populations on the Caribbean side but I mentioned that in another show. Anyway I remember being with Costa Ricans at parties and events and stuff and hearing that word Indio all over the place and in that case they were using it to insult the Nicaraguans who they referred to as Indios because they'd slip into Costa Rica and take the menial jobs that the Costa Ricans didn't want to do, they'd become cleaning ladies and gardeners and fruit pickers off the books of course. To Costa Ricans, Nicaraguans were and are strictly second class citizens and in their eyes so is every other Latin American. Remember Costa Ricans are big headed and they think of themselves as the Switzerland of Latin America. And that's why I heard the word Indio even though there weren't any indigenous people
[24:55] in the country to speak of. So the warning here is, no matter how often you hear Latins using the term, don't ever get in the habit of using it yourself because well you know why. And here's something else, I get a lot of emails from people asking me about the word gringo. Is it an insult or just a commonly used term for us Northerners? Well first of all if you're from the States, Canada, Australia, England or anywhere in Europe you're a gringo. Latins don't make that distinction unless they know enough English to pick up on our accent for example a German accent and if so like for that example they'll call you an Aleman but otherwise if they just see your face and don't pick up on your accent they'll call you a gringo. So normally the term gringo is neutral but it's all about the way a Latin person says it. I mean for example if you walk into a bar or a disco or a party and someone walks up
[25:44] to you and says hola gringo, that's a friendly hi gringo thing. And by the way hola just means hi or hello in Spanish. It's informal and used all the time. But if someone walks up to you and says for example hola gringo, then you just might have run into one of the few Latin Americans that doesn't like gringos. However if you're in a business or professional situation when you're being addressed or being introduced, often times the word gringo is way too informal and you'll be introduced or presented as a Norte Americano, you know North American or the guy from Chicago. Presento del hombre de Chicago. I'm presenting the man from Chicago. What about the word hombre which of course means man in English and depending on the
[26:32] tone of voice can mean a lot of things too. For example we might say hey what's happening man to which a Latin person might say que paso hombre whereas we might say yeah man when we mean yes a Latin will say not si hombre which of course means yeah man instead they'll crunch the two words together si hombre into si hombre making a kind of contraction out of it. And it's funny that we use the word man quite a lot when we're speaking but as a rule not too many gringo women say yeah man or hey man or what's up man and when you do hear a state-side woman talk like that she's usually blue collar and not college educated short on vocabulary you know. Anyway down here with the Latin women it's much different. They use the word hombre or man a lot which means all you love Lauren expat wannabes up
[27:21] there if you come down and meet a Latin girl and ask her out for a cup of coffee and she says si hombre you're in business and if she says no gracias gringo you're nuts. You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border email me the expat files at gmail.com and don't forget to check out expat wisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on Latin America. See you next time. Nos vemos.