Episode Summary
In this episode, Johnny Mueller explores a range of topics related to expat life in Latin America, including the concept of 'lag time' in expat opportunities, the rise of women's self-defense seminars, and the financial realities of living in the region. He reflects on how he first suggested the idea of women's self-defense seminars over four to five years ago, and now it's finally materializing with ads in local newspapers. The ads feature an upscale Latin woman confronting a masked thief, and the courses are being offered by a gringo instructor, often a caricature of a Navy SEAL or Marine. Johnny notes that these courses are a carbon copy of his original idea and highlights the irony that the ads are more about marketing than real change. He also touches on the financial concerns of expats, mentioning an email from a listener asking how long $21,000 will last in Latin America, and offers a general perspective on budgeting for expat life.
Johnny then discusses the challenges of making money in Latin America, emphasizing the need for expats to find multiple income sources within six months of living in the region. He criticizes Panama's recent price controls on 28 consumer products, comparing them to Nixon's failed policies and warning of black markets and shortages. He also shares a story about a Panama presidential candidate with questionable credentials, highlighting the political corruption in the region. The segment ends with an email from a listener in Minnesota who is hesitant to attend one of Johnny's seminars due to a fear of spiders and worms, and asks about the safety of living in clean, well-maintained residential areas in Latin America.
In another segment, Johnny discusses the realities of living in Latin America, particularly focusing on the challenges of dealing with pests and insects. He shares a personal anecdote about his past struggle with arachnophobia, which led him to seek hypnosis therapy. He expresses concerns about the potential for encountering pests in Latin America, such as spiders, bats, and wasps, and warns against the need for extreme precautions like wearing protective gear. He also shares a story about an expat named Eddie who lives in El Salvador and has encountered various insect-related issues, including bats and wasps. Eddie's experience highlights the need for vigilance and proactive measures to manage pests in such environments.
Johnny then shifts to the dangers of interacting with wasps, bees, and snakes in Latin America. He shares a story about Eddie's uncle who was killed by a swarm of bees, emphasizing the importance of not disturbing hives. Johnny also mentions his own experiences with wasps entering his home through open windows and the need for screens. He then discusses snakes, describing how they can enter homes through gaps in doors, especially during the rainy season. Johnny notes that while some snakes are venomous, the risk to expats is low, and traditional remedies are often effective. He concludes by reassuring listeners that they are generally safe unless they are in remote areas and not cautious about where they walk.
Finally, Johnny discusses the variety of animals and insects that have entered Eddie's house, emphasizing that while there are many creatures, there have been no serious incidents like attacks or bites. He lists the animals, including bats, snakes, possums, scorpions, mice, hummingbirds, moths, butterflies, lizards, worms, frogs, toads, crickets, grasshoppers, lightning bugs, and spiders. He also mentions the spiders in detail, noting their unusual size and shape, and discusses the occasional stings they may cause, though he downplays the severity. Johnny concludes by advising listeners to have bug spray on hand and reassures Claudia that she can cross off the list of people looking for a date in the region.
Topics
Lag time in expat opportunities, Women's self-defense seminars in Latin America, Marketing and advertising in expat communities, Financial concerns of expats, Making money in Latin America, Political corruption in Panama, Price controls and their impact, Residential safety and cleanliness in Latin America, Pest management in Latin America, Personal experiences with arachnophobia, Expat life challenges, Insect-related issues in expat communities
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:01:16 The Need for Women's Self-Defense Seminars in Latin America 00:02:49 The Lag Time in Bringing Women's Self-Defense Courses to Latin America 00:05:32 Financial Concerns of Expats: How Long Will $21,000 Last? 00:05:53 Making Money in Latin America 00:07:11 Price Controls and Their Consequences 00:11:07 Residential Safety and Cleanliness 00:12:19 Johnny's Past with Arachnophobia and Hypnosis Therapy 00:12:39 Johnny's Concerns About Pests in Latin America 00:13:50 Eddie's Experience with Insects in El Salvador 00:17:50 Are Wasps and Bees Dangerous? 00:20:09 Snakes and Their Impact on Daily Life 00:23:29 Complete List of Animals in Eddie's House 00:25:09 Spiders and Their Impact 00:26:54 Advice on Dealing with Insects
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:00] South of the border, down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now as I wander 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 Well, somebody finally did it lag time has caught up now If you remember a long long time ago almost five years now when I first started the show I mentioned quite a few ideas for expats and gringos coming down thinking they had to have a job or at least make some
[00:47] Money down here, you know, I throw out that stuff every once in a while, you know, I should see things you say Hey, you know what they need or you know how they got to fix that or I could do that a lot better than those idiots When you're down here with boots on the ground for a while those kind of ideas flood right in I mean sometimes it's like a tsunami, but you can't act on every one of them In fact, you can't act on even 2% of them So you got to pick your battles as they say anyway about four and a half five years ago when I first started this show I mentioned that there is a great need for some clever gringo to come down here and give Seminars or weekend courses on women's self-defense No, not karate or anything like that But just simply how to take care of yourself or how to avoid trouble when you're out and about and on the street now back then
[01:35] I remember mentioning how occasionally a woman gets kidnapped down here You know usually a pretentious upscale Latin woman showing off once they get a little money They just have to show everyone they've got things big mistake. They never learned from it But that's life down here in Latin America amongst the gringa wannabe crowd Anyway gazing at the local papers in some of the big Latin American cities I've noticed that there's some half-page ads that have been running in the last few weeks showing an upscale Latin woman with an expensive purse Confronting a guy trying to steal it from her a guy with a mask on and a gun pointed interface So it's good marketing because that's whatever you upscale woman is worried about down here So the ad says in Spanish, of course learn women's self-defense from an international
[02:24] American first world specialist. Yep. The gringo advantage rides again So who is this specialist could be you could be me who knows? This is the land of the BS and no one's ever gonna hold you to that So isn't that what marketing is all about anyway, like I said down here There is no truth in advertising You can say anything in your promotions and ads and no one will ever hold your feet to the fire It's buyer beware though, of course that said it looks like there's been exactly a four and a half to five year lag time on bringing Weekend women's self-defense courses to big cities in Latin America. Now get this this group is coming through Latin America Giving a five-hour course on a Saturday and a Friday That's plenty of time to teach an upscale pretentious Latin lady the basics
[03:11] She should already be aware of to keep herself from being a target So she'll learn the techniques. Alright, but she'd have to do something that is absolutely against her nature. That would be dressing down driving an inconspicuous smaller car and Ditching the designer clothes the diamonds in the real jewelry and the thousand dollar iPhone So they'll listen attentively for that five hours and buy into it until they get outside again And then they're back to their usual ways Why would anything change right? However, they will get that all-important diploma Which will end up in a conspicuous place of honor in the house for everyone to see it's especially important if that diploma is in English or it's highlighted that the instructor was a gringo Have I told you lately that Latins are just nuts about diplomas of any kind. Oh, and by the way
[04:02] There's a picture of a guy in the ad that looks like a marine or a Navy SEAL all the better for marketing But I guarantee you it won't be that same guy given the course. That's just for the ad now This is a carbon copy of the idea. I mentioned four or five years ago I spelled it out just like that by the way So it's like this an expat wannabe gets together with a bulked up Navy SEAL or marine from their Cleveland neighborhood He's probably unemployed as most vets are then putting the actual women's self-defense program together would take about two days It's dead easy. Nothing. Especially you can't just rip right off from the internet. That's exactly what they're doing here You got some Dwayne Johnson looking guy, you know the rock only like a foot smaller because he is one of a kind You know, they put a few ads in the local newspapers charging a hundred bucks a head
[04:52] exclusively aimed at upscale Latin women in this ad They've got the instructor looking like the rock a masked bandit with a gun and a hundred percent blonde Perfectly gringo looking woman in distress. Believe me. They don't make them like that down here. They don't exist Anyway, just to let you know that's how lag time works and how us gringo spot Opportunities that we just never act on because still a great percentage of emails that I get these days are from listeners who are expat Gonna bees and wannabes who've got sort of limited funds Wondering and worrying about when they get down here if and when that money's gonna run out and they even give me a figure Like for example, the other day I got an email from a guy saying I have $21,000 in the bank. How long will that last me when I get down here? Well, that's just a question
[05:38] I cannot answer I know plenty of backpacker types who come down here with just five thousand dollars or less and they don't plan on going back If you do live that frugal backpacker style of life that could easily last your year I'm speaking off the gringo tourist trail. That is I mean if you're want to go five star in first class five grand Could last you a month or even two weeks if you're in Panama or Costa Rica The point is if you haven't figured out 20 different ways to make money by the time you've been down here six months with boots on The ground then maybe shouldn't leave Milwaukee or Cleveland stick it out a few more years at office depot or that car parts store So there you have it. Just another missed opportunity for wannabes and gonna bees or maybe it's not maybe this women's self-defense
[06:24] Seminar idea is the work of a previous gonna be or wannabe Only it took them four and a half or five years to get it up and running and on the road Anyway, that's how things work down here. And if you're a procrastinator and at times, I think I'm pretty good at it Well, I assure you Latin Americans have got you beat. It's a society that Excells in procrastination. So just keep that in mind. So what else? Oh, yeah I did mention Panama there being on the gringo tourist trail now You know, I don't much recommend Panama unless you got a lot of money and you like heat and you like to be in Occasionally scam because you're a gringo and you like gringo prices now There's more bad news turns out on the 2nd of July the Minister of Commerce and Industry signed a decree
[07:11] Forcing price controls on 28 consumer products, you know It's the kind of thing that Nixon did way back when that didn't work and of course price controls never work That just fosters gray markets and black markets and shortages like in Venezuela where you can't even get a decent cup of coffee anymore or Ladies feminine hygiene products. Ouch. Now when that happens, it always makes me think who in the hell are these guys in government? Are they that dense? All you have to do is look up price controls and you see they never ever work Well again, it's the nepotism crony buddy buddy system and all Latin governments when you find out what these guys backgrounds Really are you say how in the hell did that group of morons ever get in positions of power?
[07:58] Now speaking of working at a car parts store I saw an interview with a guy running for president of Panama and when the interviewer asked him what his scholastic credentials were He fumbled around a bit and the interviewer looked at his notes and said psychology, right? And my notes say you got that degree online and it took you what eight years Then the candidate said yeah, but that was during a family crisis and I had to support my family Then the interviewer said all that time you worked as a car parts seller Right and you were there when the place got shut down because they were selling stolen parts Correct and believe me the candidate squirmed and turned bright red now. I ask you aside from selling stolen car parts
[08:44] Have you ever met anyone who took eight years to get a friggin psychology degree? Better question yet. Do you know anyone with a bachelor's degree in psychology who isn't working at McDonald's or Starbucks? Well down here it qualifies you for that and the presidency Anyway, as of July 2nd Panama has put the lid that is price controls on 28 different consumer products including vegetable oil meat Chicken fruit sugar, etc And they're doing this a government spokesman says to lower the cost of basic items for a family of four by get this $56 a year now the thing that really smells bad about this is that these kind of things come around right before election time That's how these parties stay in power forever
[09:31] They throw a bone to the sweaty masses the largest segment of the population. They're not only poor They're vastly undereducated and are easily bought now Panama is one country that politicians will do anything to stay in office Why because the Panama Canal itself is the biggest source of slush funds a politician could ever want It's forever in need of repair and expansion So there are virtually hundreds of sweetheart contracts issued on that thing every month And who do you think those contracts go to and who gets the skim off the top of each one? Why the government in power, of course Which is why every medium and high-level politician as well as all the guys in Congress and their careers as multi millionaires And why three past presidents are either in jail or under indictment and funny thing
[10:22] They almost never get indicted or go to jail while they're in office It always happens a few years afterwards when cronies get pissed and talk because they find out they didn't get their cut or their piece Though one of my long-term expat friends who lives in Panama says there is a saving grace to all that it's that the politicians don't have to steal from the general tax base trough as they do in almost all other Latin countries the Panama Canal itself is their milk cow and their mainline to riches. They don't have to steal directly from the taxpayers And remember the sign of a desperate first world government is price controls as opposed to the third world when price controls show up there It's all about getting the sweaty masses to vote so the party in power can stay in office Okay, and now an email this from Claudia in Minnesota
[11:11] She says Johnny I live in a typical middle-class community up in the Twin Cities and so many times I nearly signed up for your seminar But in the end I always kind of chicken out because I have this phobia you see I absolutely can't stand and I'm terrified of spiders and worms Actually tiny little spiders I can handle but anything that's bigger than a penny I just kind of freeze and well It's not pretty and I know over the years you've told various stories about different creepy crawling creatures that are in Latin America And how everything's much bigger much hairier and much scarier at least to me it sounds that way So before I almost sign up for one of your seminars again. Here's my question You talk about nice suburban gated communities and residential towers
[12:00] That you say are pretty good and faithful replicas of the same up here Which must mean they're pretty clean and spic and span, right? If not, please tell me the reality Concerning spiders and other bugs. Oh and by the way I even went for hip note therapy some years ago when I was married I had such a bad case of arachnophobia that I wouldn't go down in the basement to do basic things like the laundry a lot of Marital discord over that I can tell you yes the hypnosis did help I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to make a move all the way down to Latin America and find I have to Wear a helmet rubber gloves and waiters just to go to sleep at night Please be honest about this and don't tell me to come down and have my house fumigated every month I pride myself on eating healthy organic stuff, and I'm not gonna bombard my house with those nasty pesticides
[12:51] Thanks for all the great shows. See you at the next seminar, maybe Claudia PS based on your last two shows I guess when I come down I'm gonna have to find myself a gringo it sounds like if you date Latin guys You have to revert to high school tactics with them. I don't think I'm ready to do that again I'm thinking off the gringo tourist trail But I'm also thinking within a half-hours drive of a place where I can meet up with gringos Is that a bad idea am I asking for too much okay a lot of stuff there Thanks for that Claudia now. Let me be entirely 100 percent actually a thousand percent brutally honest You will I guarantee see annoying things in greater quantities and exponentially greater sizes
[13:39] Then you'll see up in the states especially if you're up in a place like, Minnesota And yes if you pick the right first world guarded location You can minimize the creepy crawlies with the help of your cleaning lady of course But you're gonna have encounters, and you're gonna see things for example. Let's take expat Eddie He lives in El Salvador in a very high-end subdivision. You know lots of range rovers SUVs and bodyguards and all that not him He drives a 1998 Dodge Ram pickup gotta love it, huh? No dings and dents in it though He does keep up the bodywork anyway now remember He's got a full-time gardener full-time made and his place in fact the whole subdivision looks like it's out of better homes and gardens With that let me tell you this little story that happened Maybe about three months ago one day Eddie walked into the master bathroom and his cleaning lady was spraying all kind of noxious crap
[14:28] All over the place you know Pesticides and stuff and Eddie said you don't want to do that without ventilation And he walked over the jacuzzi and opened a big opaque glass sliding window And she ran over to him and started closing and he said what you're doing. I'm gonna open this oh Yeah, and I forgot to tell you this is on the second floor of his house. She says no no no that's alright Don't open that and then he said you crazy We need some air in here So he flung it open and the cleaning lady backed herself up against the sink with a ghastly look on her face And Eddie said what's wrong? What's wrong with you, and she said look Moosie Ella goes do you know what those are? Bats nope there weren't bats flying around it was daytime however in the tree Not ten feet away from the window there were 30 or so bats snoozing away
[15:14] Sleeping upside down like bats are inclined to do oh, Eddie said they were small bats about six or eight inches long But still it was a kind of a startling scene He said because you know every day he goes into that bathroom and he sleeps in the room right next door and here There's all these bats living not ten feet away, and that's when Eddie said now I get it He said you know what Johnny every night for I don't know how long I hear this kind of Thumping against the window very soft and gentle But all the time I was thinking it must be tree branches in the wind brushing up against the window anyway after that bat Experience late that night when all the lights were off I heard that noise again, and I took my big high-powered flashlight And I walked in there stuck the flashlight up to the window and sure enough a dozen little bat faces were
[16:06] Thumping up against the window on the other side scooping up mosquitoes and bugs That's where they were having dinner every night against my window right next to my jacuzzi, and what did Eddie do about it? Absolutely nothing to him. It's kind of a cool secret little pleasure now Eddie hasn't told very many people about it He's never even told his fiance she'd have freaked out Oh, and another thing Eddie says about three times a year He has to send his maintenance man up a long ladder with a broom and a pole To smack the wasp in the hornet nest that always seemed to show up and Eddie said it's really easy to figure out when that happens He'll be sitting quietly reading the paper or looking out the kitchen window and suddenly he'll hear a low fadened Background hum coming from outside somewhere, and he knows he says from experience
[16:56] That's when the wasps hornets and wild bees out of there somewhere have produced a queen or two And they're out looking for another place to nest and when they find a place a couple times a year under his eaves or on Top of a door that queen a land and suddenly within ten or fifteen minutes There'll be a thousand bees or wasps gathered in a ball right on the side of his house Starting to make a hive He'll hear that buzz of activity going four days And if you let him go for days, they'll build a nice solid hive there So that's why he has his maintenance man go after these guys with stick and broom as soon as he hears that hum Because you know if left to their own devices They'll build a rock-solid house as big as a football
[17:41] then the maintenance man has to kill the ones flying around with insecticide and Chiseled that hive off which always wrecks the paint job So then you might ask out those wasps and bees dangerous Well, I guess they are because Eddie's maintenance man said when his uncle was clearing a lot some years ago He whacked a hive unknowingly and got stung to death Actually, he was Exphyxiated because he got stung so many times around the mouth and neck that his throat swelled and he couldn't breathe now He was way out in the boonies and didn't have anywhere to run to but still you can't Be deader than dead even so and he's maintenance man That was his uncle said you don't bother them They don't bother you and believe me you know what when you're getting close to one of these hives because I've heard that sound before too when walking through the woods or
[18:30] Walking through one of my own backyard gardens where there are some big trees you hear that buzzing in a far-off distance You know, there's some big-time bee wasp or hornet activity going on and they're probably ejecting a queen or two in fact this very minute I'm looking out a window and I can see one of those big hives way up in a pine tree and You know 99% of the time you don't hear that sound. They're rather dormant Now if you're worried about those things, they're all over the place in the woods and wherever there are trees Just don't go hacking into them or throwing rocks at them and you'll be okay So leave them alone if they're on a tree somewhere even close by they won't bother you But when they're on your house or on the top of a door, you gotta do something about it Now if you're really the tolerant and passive type and wouldn't hurt a flea or a cockroach
[19:18] Still if you have one of those things on your house If you open a window some of those wasps or bees are bound to get inside. That's happened to me That's happened to all of us In fact, I have a fireplace and every once in a while a couple of bees or wasps will sneak through the flu So I know there's got to be a hive or a nest nearby And you know, I like to keep the windows open and like I said in the past show hardly anyone down here has screens Most people even with new housing have just a kind of a louvered window and you open them when necessary Which means I generally have to kill about 20 big fat wasps a year I don't like those things and every year a handful of honeybees get into the house, too But that's what you get if you like to leave your windows open now That's not to say you can't buy screens for your house
[20:03] You can but I believe enough even wealthy people don't have them or they just have a few screens here and there So then let's talk about the happy subject of snakes. We love those right Eddie told me just about two weeks ago he was walking up the stairs in his house and Sure enough. There's about a foot and a half long little black snake all coiled up there and how to get in well Doors here in Latin America do not have weather stripping or pressure fit thresholds Some of them are tight fitting but where the door actually meets the floor a lot of times It's just kind of a Spanish tile. That's not quite even, you know rustic Spanish tile isn't meaning There's always about a quarter inch or more gap between the door and the floor and amazingly
[20:50] Fairly good-sized critters can wiggle through beetles geckos spiders Scorpions frogs in fact, whatever small stuff you got living outside in your yard or garden will try to get in Especially during the rainy season when it gets a little cold and damp and the animals like a nice soft cozy warm place to hang So Eddie said when this harmless looking snake was coiled up on the stair his girlfriend came over and gave out a shriek She freaked out and Eddie killed it and the next day when Eddie showed it to his maintenance man. Sure enough It was poisonous then the maintenance man said yeah I killed two of them about three or four months ago in your backyard again Like his maintenance guy said you don't mess with them. They don't mess with you
[21:35] So it is an occupational hazard for agriculture workers and maintenance guys and gardeners They're confronted with those things all the time and know what to expect So how poisonous was that little black snake enough to kill a dog or a young kid and make life pretty painful for an adult and by the way, all the hospitals and clinics in Central and South America have Anti-venoms because gardeners and agricultural workers do get bitten occasionally In fact, every maintenance worker and gardener has a story about a friend or family member who's been bitten by a snake and had to be rushed to the hospital and when the hospitals hours away home Traditional remedies are applied and believe it or not. Most of the time they actually work That's according to both Eddie's and my gardener. So should you be worrying about snakes? Well, I'll tell you this
[22:21] I've seen some snakes down here some gigantic ones on the road dead You know driving by and a couple of years ago I was looking out my back window and I saw a couple of them shamelessly fornicating in the backyard They were small greenish brown snakes about two two and a half feet. So then were they poisonous? Well only your gardener knows for sure Workers down here know practically everything about the local animals and it's a good thing, too Now over the years, I found some molted snakeskins in my backyard, too Which means they've been around but not to worry like all gardeners will tell you you leave them alone They'll leave you alone You're really in no danger at all unless you're walking through the compo that is out in the boonies And the brush is high and you happen to step on one
[23:07] So do where you're walking or hiking boots not that it's ever been a real problem in my 25 plus years down here I've never known or heard of a case of a gringo or even a backpacker getting bit by a snake That's not to say I haven't heard plenty of stories from people saying they've seen a snake here and there always had a distance But no one I've ever heard of that has actually been attacked or bitten So to run down the complete list of animals and critters that have made it into Eddie's house He says he's had now bats. He's had snakes. He's had a possum in the house scorpions mice Hummingbirds and he says that's always a disaster because they fly up into the highest Skylight dome and they kind of fry themselves out because they have to eat all the time
[23:54] So they lose energy fast doesn't take long before they drop and hit the ground Then when you pick them up, they're so fragile Sometimes you damage them while you're trying to save them In fact, he says he's had three or four different kinds of birds that have somehow gotten into his house And he's had gigantic moths and butterflies and lizards and worms and a frog and a toad here and there, too Yep, Claudia. I said worms sometimes in the rainy season. You see a worm or two crawling up or hanging on a wall Nothing to write home about but when people ask me if I have worms I say well no more than the next guy Oh, and don't forget the occasional cricket and grasshopper now It's not like your house is infested with these guys But it's true during the rainy season some of them do make their way in and so at night
[24:39] If you're a light sleeper occasionally You'll be disturbed by the crickets that have made it into your house, and you'll never be able to find them You'll just hear them believe me I've tried and one cricket in the dead of night in your living room somewhere sounds like an orchestra those things are sneaky Oh, and I forgot the Lucierne guys That's the lightning bugs a couple of months a year those guys are out in force and occasionally They'll find their way into your house somehow who knows I've had that happen and in a way It's kind of cool, so then back to Claudia's original question. What about those spiders? Oh? Yes, I see him all the time And they've got these very weird spiders down here that are almost as flat as a thin piece of cardboard Yet, they could be as big around as a hockey puck now
[25:26] You don't see big ones like that very often, but you occasionally see the smaller ones crawling around on your ceiling at night now No, they don't seem to like each other much There's usually only one to a room and after a while if you don't kill the guy you get to know his patterns But like Claudio I don't like spiders much either however I don't go out of my way to kill them unless they're really big or close by now Eddie Who's pretty much tolerant of anything occasionally when his girlfriend freaks? He'll kill a spider instantly with the back of his hand now He tells me he hits him just right so he never gets their guts on his hand I'm sure all you ladies out there will appreciate that so then do those spiders spider sting well they must because occasionally with me anyway I
[26:13] Feel an itch and catch myself looking at a little red spot That's not so little like for example if you get nailed by a mosquito So yes at night spiders have been known to get frisky now like I said I'm talking about living out in the boonies in the coffee fields, so you're gonna get more exposure to that kind of stuff So I guess if spiders are truly biting people at night I never hear anyone complaining about it though like I said I've had the telltale signs myself and the side effects well no real pain just itching You don't even hear stories like that from backpackers who normally have 30 or 40 welts on their legs anyway Especially the ones that are gringo stupid enough to wear shorts all the time so anyway No matter how much you hate insecticide have some bug spray on hand because it does help in certain situations
[27:00] So I guess that means Claudia. You're not coming down right meaning all you expect gringos down here looking for a date You can cross her off the list. Hey. You know it's kind of stuffy in here. I think I'll open a window Oops glad it's not in my house 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
[27:46] And don't forget to check out expat wisdom calm to sign up for your free reports on Latin America See you next time nos vemos He knows