#352 – The Expat Files: Life in Latin America, Wisdom Seminars, and Cultural Insights

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. Okay first things first, now y'all know I'm putting on another expat wisdom seminar in July and since I announced it just about a week or so ago I've been getting a lot of emails from people asking me about staying before the seminar and after. Since that's what a lot of people end up doing, they come down here and just hang on and hang on or they have definite plans to do some exploring on their own or perhaps are thinking of hooking up with a personal Spanish tutor or even living with an immersion family.

[01:01] So just to let you know when you're here for the seminar week you're totally in our hands and we've got every day and night planned out to the max. Meaning during that week from Saturday through Friday morning you won't have too much free time to jam anything else in. Even at night we'll all be going out for dinner and entertainment too but if you're going to come some days or even weeks before the seminar or have plans to stay longer after the seminar, my 100% bilingual expat wisdom event coordinator will if you like help you arrange all your trips and adventures before and after the event and believe me she knows all my favorite places and how to get my favorite deals so that means no gringo prices here. Not only that, if you let her help make up your itinerary for you, you'll get to see things that average gringos and tourists never get to see because many of her best

[01:50] suggestions are based on my own best personal traveling experiences and my own gringo standards. Now note that my special event coordinator does not work for a travel agency. She's way too overqualified to be a travel agent. In fact for her day job she's an English teacher at a private academy. And note that if you use her for your itinerary or any travel arrangements whatsoever, I don't make a commission or a cent off it. I don't need to and I don't want to. I just want to see that when you come down here you have the best time possible and that you get to see and experience things that took me years to discover. Anyway, she can recommend an entire jam-packed itinerary no matter how many extra days, weeks or even months you plan on staying down here. So if you're wondering just what to do and how to best use your time if you're

[02:39] coming before or after the seminar, you don't have to take a chance by throwing a dart at a guidebook or searching around on the internet. Our seminar event coordinator can hook you up with transportation, hotels, bed and breakfast, long and short term rentals, tours, shopping, Spanish teachers, immersion families, a personal bilingual tour guide if you like, the works. And best of all she's part of the expat wisdom team so she's ready and willing to hold your hand through all that stuff if need be. And by the way it doesn't matter what kind of budget you're on if you're on a backpacker budget or you go first class. Now as for me, I just hate spending a hundred bucks or more for a hotel. Even though down here off the gringo tourist trail, a hundred dollar hotel is like a two, three or four hundred dollar hotel up in the States.

[03:27] Anyway, I usually end up staying in some fantastic 30, 40 and 50 dollar hotels believe it or not. And I even know some very adequate in fact quite nice hotels that are only 15 to 20 bucks a night. Up in the States what could you get for that? A cardboard box under a bridge maybe? And even though some of these little hotels come in at 15 to 20 bucks a night, they're clean and you have your own bathroom. That's my minimum standard, remember? And of course our event coordinator knows all about those great little places and the 30, 40, 50, 75 and a hundred dollar a night places too. And then there's those discounted weekly and monthly rentals and kitchenettes, et cetera, et cetera. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to push anything here. Of course, if you like, feel free to make your own arrangements too.

[04:16] I'm just giving you a heads up on a great resource. Just a valuable suggestion. That doesn't mean you have to utilize her services at all. If you're into exploring alone or checking things out on the internet and pre-booking and all that, that's fine. But she knows all the right places and all the great deals. From doing my expat wisdom seminars, of course. So anyway, just to set your mind at ease if you're staying longer. She's prepared to give you a killer itinerary. So just keep that in mind. And it would work like this. Right after you sign up for the seminar, you can email and Skype with her. And she'll help you draw up your itinerary and hold your hand through the reservations, et cetera. And remember, she's not working for a travel agency. She's better than a travel agency because she concentrates her efforts

[05:02] on coordinating our expat wisdom seminars, taking care of any of the special needs for our attendees. Okay, so that's just a clarification for all of you guys and gals who've been sending me email saying you'd like to stay on longer to explore or take Spanish lessons, do an immersion program or whatever. That preceding rant was specifically for those of you who've been wondering how to plan your itinerary and your adventure. Okay, let's move on. Now, if you remember, in the last show, I never quite got to finish the good, the bad, and the ugly regarding that most staple food down here, the simple, basic, lowly tortilla. Corn tortilla, that is, because the ones you get up north and at Taco Bell, they're wheat tortillas and have about the nutritional value of a piece of cardboard.

[05:49] Now, as you may have guessed, based on what I said in the last program, and I'll make this statement in the interest of full disclosure, I do not eat tortillas, though I'll fake it when I'm at someone's house and they put them on my plate. I'll just stealthily shove them in my pocket and give them to my dog later. Dogs aren't too picky about their tortillas, you know? In fact, even before I swore off bread and pasta, maybe five years ago or so, I just would never eat tortillas. Why? Because I've stood in front of those little tortillas and I've seen how those ladies make them. In fact, most of them are the most unsanitary operations I've ever seen, but that doesn't seem to scare off any of the high rollers,

[06:36] the wealthy and even rich lands who grew up on those things since childhood. Yep, even the richest folks buy and eat those corn tortillas every day, but they send their maids and cleaning ladies out to buy them. They almost never show their faces at one of those little tortilla joints. That just wouldn't be socially correct, according to the Latin class system. Anyway, let me tell you why you shouldn't eat those tortillas either. First of all, the lady will take your money with the same hands that she's forming those tortillas with. Then she'll dip her hands into a pot of water that's been standing there all day, it's never changed. Then, after she's touched her hair and her face in the countertop and wiped the snot off her kid's nose, she'll take those same dirty hands and pick up a mass of dough

[07:23] and form it into a tortilla and slap it down in a perfect circle on the hot stove. Then, with her bare fingers, she'll pull up on some hot tortillas already on the stove to check if they've been browned enough. Then she'll go over to the counter to collect some more money from another client and she'll repeat that process maybe 50 or 100 times a day. And her hands won't be sticky and wet from touching all that dough, which by the way they call masa here, M-A-S-A, which literally translates into mass, M-A-S-S, like a mass of something, masa. So anyway, her hands won't be sticky and moist all the time because she's wiped her hands on a towel or on her obviously filthy apron, both of which start out fresh in the morning but are never changed the whole day.

[08:12] And do note, there'll always be a young baby or two around the place, one crawling around the floor or in the arms of one of those ladies while she's forming up the tortillas too. And there always seems to be a three or four year old kid around trying to form tortillas up just like mommy and grandma are doing. Only of course, he occasionally drops his masa on the ground, but no matter, mommy picks it up and wipes it off and it goes back on the stove or back into the dough pot. This is the third world, you know, so it's rare to see food wasted, even when it's hit the ground a few times. And note that kid will alternate playing with the dough with playing with the dog as well as occasionally crawling around on the dirt floor, sucking on fingers and sometimes toes and probing and scratching its own mouth,

[08:59] eyes, nose, and ears as babies tend to do. And worse. Then back to touching mama's face and hands and playing with some more of that tortilla dough. Meanwhile, mommy picks up the dog who's barking and throws it outside because it just took a crap under the stove. Then mom comes back in, grabs another glump of tortilla dough and gets back to work. Now you might ask, or maybe you won't, what happens when those ladies or their kids have to answer nature's call? Do note that these little tortillas are little makeshift operations of tin and wood, basically shacks, dirt floor shacks. And I'd say about 999 out of 1000 do not have bathrooms and most do not have running water.

[09:45] So your guess is as good as mine as to how those ladies pull off that call of nature business. All I know is that they disappear outside usually into the brush and reappear and get right back to work. You really don't want to know the details. But you can be sure of one thing. There's a whole lot of bacterial transference going on. And you my friend are bringing some of it home. Because you see, no one uses gloves. And when those tortillas are brown and ready to be picked up off the stove, the same lady who handled the child, the dog, the money, and her call to nature, picks them up with her bare hands and shoves them in a little plastic bag for you. But man, they smell good. Oh and did I mention none of these torterias has any glass in the windows?

[10:31] They're just open spaces front and back because they've got a big flat stove so they need air circulation. Oh and by the way, don't mind the flies. They only sit on the raw dough. They don't land on the hot tortillas because well, they're too hot. Oh and one last thing about that. If you think when you're in a nice restaurant that necessarily the tortilla making process is much more sanitary, that their techniques are different than those little tortilla shops on the street. Well, you'd be half right. Because you see, if you look in most traditional kitchens in nice restaurants in Latin America, you'll see a couple indigenous ladies in the back making tortillas in the very same way. Now admittedly, they'll have a bathroom and running water and the flies will be minimized

[11:17] and there won't be any kids or dogs crawling around on the floor. And yes, it will be a cement or tile floor too. But do remember that old bad hygiene habits die hard. Like for example, they'll pick up those tortillas when they're done and they'll put them on a dish or your plate with their bare hands. And that bathroom, at least the worker's bathroom, will not, I guarantee you, have any paper towels. And if they do have a towel at all, it'll be a dirty stained cloth towel that's more than moist to the touch. Yuck. And believe me, that could be worse than having no towel at all. Because like expat Eddie says, and he owns quite a few restaurants, when there is no towel in a restaurant bathroom, your immediate instinct after washing your hands in the faucet

[12:05] is to wipe them off on your own pants. At least that's what most gringos do anyway. Which really is infinitely preferable to transferring the dirt, the moisture and the bacteria from the last 10 or 20 people who use that towel to your own hands. So in the end, I truly believe that the cause for a lot of upset stomachs and digestive problems with gringos, after they think they've done everything else right, like drink bottled water, avoid ice cubes and raw salads, wipe and clean off their forks and knives before they use them at restaurants, et cetera. Even after taking those precautions, some gringos and expats continue to have the occasional upset stomach, or worse. So there, I believe, is one of the missing links, tortillas.

[12:51] And I know a lot of gringos who say, yeah, well, you know, there's a lot of bacteria around and people touch things all the time. But these tortillas, they just came hot off the stove. And therefore, the heat likely killed all the bacteria. But you see, they're missing that part about the manhandling of the tortillas once they get off the stove and onto your plate. And here's another thing that expat Eddie will verify. If you don't eat all the tortillas that land on your table, and sometimes you'll get a huge pile of them, they will get recycled to the next round of customers, which means another round of manhandling with bare fingers. And by the way, that goes for bread and rolls too. Unless they're decrepit and molding, you can count on them being recycled just like tortillas. And sometimes, in that bread basket on your table, you'll notice a dent where it seems

[13:37] like someone's taken a bite. Oh well, the joys of third world restaurants, huh? Actually, it reminds me of some Greek restaurants I know up in Chicago. And they in turn remind me of something else. Now, I've talked about this with a couple of gringo friends of mine. And we really think that restaurants and businesses should be punished, or there should be some kind of meaningful payback if the bathroom for clients doesn't have a sink, or has a sink and there's no running water. To us gringos, not Latins. There's something that's just revolting about a situation like that. So, some gringo friends of mine, including expat Eddie, really think there should be some payback there, some kind of small punishment, enough so that the owner, not the people working there,

[14:23] suffers a bit for his carelessness and lack of providing a basic service to his clients, especially when it's a restaurant. One gringo I know had an idea. He said, we all should carry a small grease pencil with us and when there's no sink or running water, you're right on the mirror. Something like, you and your friends will never return again until they have running water. However, the problem with that is, first of all, you have to know enough Spanish to write something like that. And secondly, more than half of the restaurant bathrooms down here don't have mirrors. The fact is, some of the very nicely appointed restaurants, in the restaurant area anyway, have very crappy bathrooms. So, I'll ask all you guys and gals out in radio and podcast land,

[15:10] what would you do? What kind of meaningful payback would you propose that would actually get the owner off his ass to make some basic sanitary improvements like that? And don't say you wouldn't go to that kind of restaurant in the first place, because oftentimes you don't realize that there is no running water in the bathroom until you actually mosey on in there. And do remember what I said on the show quite a while back, that some of these restaurant and business owners are so cheap that they actually do have running water to the bathroom, but to save on their water bill, they shut the valve off under the sink or the toilet. That's why when you find there is no water, you should always stick your hand under there and turn the valve. Of course, that won't help if there's no sink, but I found that probably more than half the time,

[15:56] there actually is water, you just have to turn it on. By the way, before you stick your hand behind the sink looking for that valve, do have a quick look to see you're not disturbing some creatures home down there. I mean, come on, this is Latin America and the spiders and the chameleons and such, well, they like to homestead in dark secluded places like that. That said, I guess I just scared off all you ladies out there. You're not going to try that little trick, are you? Now, what Exped Eddie says is to get some quick, cheap revenge, what you should do is turn on the water and turn on the sink valves and leave everything running. Then just walk out. Along with that, he says you should pull off the rubber flapper valve in the toilet tank. Then if you turn on the valve and the water works, the water will never stop.

[16:42] And Eddie says all of that will truly piss off the owner because he's wasting and paying for more water than he ever thought possible. That was Eddie's idea and he's thinking of pure sabotage because that won't teach the guy a lesson. It'll only teach him to find a more permanent way to shut the water off completely. He won't learn a thing that way and he won't change his habits either. Because of that, I definitely don't recommend it. So you're wondering why Eddie as a businessman would come up with an idea like that? Well, that's because someone did it in one of his bathrooms once. And to this day, every time he thinks about it, he gets a little irritated. Okay, enough said about that. Maybe too much said about that. Oh, and by the way, at the beginning of the program, I started talking about my Expat Wisdom seminar in July, but I never gave you the details, did I?

[17:29] It'll be in Guatemala, Central America, mostly well off the gringo tourist trail. Just go to www.expatwisdom.com and click on the Latin American seminar link at the top of the page and you can get full details there. And if you have any other questions, just email me at theexpatfiles at gmail.com or johnny at expatwisdom.com. Now, to change gears a bit, let's talk about something that comes up in conversation quite a bit down here. When you're speaking with Latins or you're listening to them speak to each other. That is, if your Spanish is good enough to understand any of it. It took me five years at least to figure out what the locals down here were saying behind my back. But I shouldn't have worried. It wasn't like back up in Chicago.

[18:15] Down here, because of our gringo advantage, it was all good. Now, of course, as you listen to anyone speaking Spanish, even if you don't know any Spanish at all, every sentence or so, you'll pick out a word that sounds almost exactly like one you know in English. Aside, of course, from the very, very common Spanish words that we all know, like si and manana, nacho, burrito, frijoles, et cetera. You know, all the stuff that's on the menu at Taco Bell. Anyway, the other day I was talking to a fresh gringo first time down here, a guy who admittedly doesn't even know any Latin people up in his own town. Because, like he said, in Minnesota, there just ain't many. And he said, you know, Johnny, I've been down here in Central America about two weeks now and I've been to three countries. Panama, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. And I keep hearing two words

[19:01] over and over again. The words rica, as in Costa Rica, and the word encanta. Rica and encanta, they seem to be used over and over again. What do they mean? He said that first word, rica. It can't always just mean that same thing rica does in Costa Rica. Costa Rica meaning rich coast. He questioned me, he said, rica does mean rich, right? I mean, that's what it says in a dictionary. So, why do I hear Latin say that word 50 times a day? What's that all about, he was wondering. Well, think of it this way. There are certain words in the English language too that we use over and over to mean that we really like something, meaning something's not just good, but it's extra good. But we don't say extra good now,

[19:48] do we? For example, one of those words in English is cool. And I know that word cool has gone in and out of favor depending on the time period. There was a time a few years ago when no one used it. It was uncool, but lately it's been on the comeback. In fact, I have a couple of nieces and nephews up in Chicago who use that word cool 20 or 30 times a day. Cool car, cool color, cool clothes, cool rings, cool computer, cool tattoo, whatever. And now the word cool has been competing heavily with the word awesome, a word that really grates on me, by the way. I kind of have a pet theory that every time you say the word awesome, a million brain cells just up and die. Now, I know it's a flood theory because it doesn't explain how

[20:33] the gray matter just simply evaporated out of guys like Alan Greenspan and Bush Jr. So anyway, think of the words cool and awesome, and that's how Latins use the word rica or rico. Depending, of course, on the gender of the thing that's cool or awesome or rich. And I don't mean rich as in wealthy, I mean rich as certain high caloric foods like desserts are described in English. For example, rich cake or rich milk chocolate. You know what I mean. Now, there is a slight distinction in the usage of the word rica or rico in that it's often used to describe food too, as well as other cool or awesome or rich essential experiences like taking a deep breath of mauner or drinking a cold glass of water

[21:21] after a workout or after a dip in a pool or jacuzzi or after a back scratch or a massage. A Latin just might say Okay, so that explains the word rica or rico. So what about that other common overused Spanish word that gringo mentioned? The word encanta. Encanta. Well, here's how that pans out. It's simply a Spanish word that can be substituted for our English word love, L-O-V-E. At least you can do that about 80% of the time. So for example, if a lady says I love this blouse, a Latin person will say blusa obviously meaning blouse in Spanish.

[22:08] Anyway, when English speakers say they love their cars and their houses and their makeup, a particular movie, whatever inanimate object they happen to really care for, Spanish speakers will just say me encanta and then fill in the blank. But notice here I said 80% of the time. That other 20% is when you're talking about living things. Spanish speakers do not use the word encanta if they really like or love some living thing. Like a dog or a husband or a wife or a girlfriend or a pet iguana or whatever. While English speakers will use that same overused word love when referring to persons and living things as well as inanimate objects.

[22:54] Whereas Spanish speakers will use the word amor. So in effect, English speakers have one word for love and Latin people have two words. You got it? It's pretty simple really. The Spanish language, you gotta love it. Me encanta, sometimes. Enough said about that. Okay now, where was I? Oh yeah, I have to finish off something that I spoke about a couple of weeks ago. Been getting emails on this one. Remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that they still use massive quantities of manual typewriters down here in Latin America? You know, the old style mechanical ones that you don't plug in. So I'm not talking about IBM Selectrix here. I'm talking about old Royal, Olivetti, Remington, etc.

[23:42] Mechanical jobs. And I specifically mentioned the central parks in all the medium and large-sized Latin cities. Where you'll see dozens of kiosks and card tables set up around all the government buildings. That's when you can see dozens and dozens of people pounding away at those things every day of the week. Well, every work day anyway. Now, like I said, I got some emails after I first touched on this subject. A few quick expat wannabes thought to themselves, well hey, then why can't I ship some old obsolete typewriters from the U.S. down there and sell them? Wouldn't that be a great business? Well in a word, no. And here's why. The Spanish alphabet and Spanish keyboards on manual typewriters and computers are slightly differently arranged

[24:27] than they are on English language versions. And unfortunately, any old typewriter that you ship down here, even if you get them for free and only have to pay the shipping, will have to go to a typewriter mechanic shop and have some of those keys and letters replaced. Not only that, the whole layout of typewriters down here is slightly different. Now, you might not know that you can switch your own keyboard on your computer into the Spanish mode. There's an option for that on your taskbar and your control panel. Now, if you've ever done that by accident, you'll see it's very frustrating to try to type out anything in English. And that's a preview of the problems you'll have if you ship down typewriters with English keyboards. And they will be English layouts. In other words,

[25:13] don't go buying up a 40-foot container of surplus typewriters from the government and hope you're going to make some money by bringing them down here. And yes, labor's dirt cheap everywhere in Latin America, even on the tourist trail. Though like Expat Eddie and a lot of successful businessmen down here say all the time. Unlike up in the States, the one thing you can do down here is make a lot of mistakes because there's a ton of wiggle room. And the fact is, most gringos do end up spinning their wheels for quite a while before they get some traction in most any business. So, as far as that surplus typewriter idea, which sounds great at first, chances are the little shops down here that work on typewriters will not have the parts or the keys for the old models you're going to bring down

[25:58] because there are dozens of manufacturers and hundreds of different models of mechanical typewriters. And down here, they only carry parts for very, very standard models. And that's something you'd never find out unless you came down and checked it out for yourself. So, as a possible business for gringos, nice try but no cigar. And by the way, that little mechanical typewriter story there, that's an excellent simple example showing why you really have to have boots on the ground before you spend too much time and money up in the States on some great brainstorm you think just might be a killer idea down here. Because the truth is, I'd say about 90% of all the successful gringo businessmen I personally know, also first had some great ideas up in the States to bring down here before they had any boots

[26:45] on the ground at all. Then they actually made their success in a completely different business once they saw the opportunities firsthand. By the way, opportunities that they never would have dreamed of sitting on that sofa in their underwear in Cleveland surfing the internet and munching Cheetos. Now, since we're getting a bit towards the end of the show, I thought I'd mention that I get a lot of emails from people asking me if I've got any more Expat Eddie stories. And yes, I do. But I just like to say for the record now that Expat Eddie and I had a bit of a falling out in the last couple months. Now, it's not Eddie and I actually. It's that his Salvadorian girlfriend he's engaged to doesn't want him to hang out with me anymore. So when I'm in the same room with her, it's icy. I get the silent treatment.

[27:30] Tell you about it next time. 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 theexpatfiles at gmail.com and don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on Latin America. See you next time. Nos vemos.