#503 – The Expat Files: Life, Coffee, and Cockroaches in Latin America

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

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now I wonder 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 Let's talk about what happens with everyday life and expat gringo land Well last week I was visiting a slightly upper middle-class Latin American family home and upper middle class down here is someone making 2,000 to maybe

[00:46] 4,000 a month compared to up in the first world where the bottom rungs of what you might consider upper middle class Start at maybe 10 to 12 grand a month, though. I could be wrong I'm 25 years out of the country and don't really have a good handle on that not to mention Everybody's idea of where upper middle class begins is slightly different Upper middle class in New York is a hell of a lot different than upper middle class in Cleveland Now the reason why I was at this somewhat upper middle class house Latin American style that is last weekend was Because expat Eddie's been telling me about this family He knows they live three or four kilometers away from his subdivision and they've got this very amazing special weird dog It's a mud. All right, but it's got some habits. You won't believe now

[01:31] I don't know if I mentioned this in a past show or not about a certain dog that I saw once Out on the street on New Year's Eve when everyone was blowing off fireworks at midnight and this dog contrary to every other dog I've ever known just loves explosions and firecrackers In fact you light and throw a firecracker and he'll chase it down to the ground as the fuse is running down Kick it around a bit with his paws play with it a while then grab it with his mouth and toss it till it finally Blows he actually knows how to judge those things. Yep They blow all right a couple of feet from his head usually and he's got scars to prove it So he may be judging these things correctly now, but early on he I should say she Made a few permanent errors Now you might think this is a belated April Fool's story or I'm really pulling your leg, but I assure you it's real

[02:20] So what happens after the explosions are over? Well, that dog rushes down the street to the next driveway where kids are blowing off more firecrackers and does the very same thing Everybody in the neighborhood knows and loves that dog. He's part of the festivities Anyway years ago when I told expat Eddie that story he laughed and said I totally believe you Johnny But it must be a Latin dog thing. I've never seen an American dog do that However, that might be because fireworks are illegal up in the States So dogs don't ever get a chance to get their kicks like that then Eddie said Johnny, you know I've been meaning to talk to you about something There's a dog a couple of kilometers down from my neighborhood in San Salvador. That's sort of locally famous, too He does that trick in one better And what I want to do is go down there and it film that thing for a couple of minutes and send it to that

[03:05] Show up in the States America's funniest home videos or the funniest pet videos Last year Eddie said at midnight He went over there and watched that dog and made a deal with the owner that they were gonna film it That is Eddie was gonna film it and they were gonna send it in and split the top 5k prize But they never did you know how life is a lot of times you talk about things but never do them now get this Eddie said not only does this dog go after fireworks with burn marks and scars and bare patches to prove it Now Eddie said her daily pastime is even more strange She hunts down iguanas and reptiles by day and brings them home She'll wound them just enough so they're still alive and can't get away and deposit them on the patio When she's got four or five of them together She'll play with them and heard him around until she gets bored and eventually they limp off into the brush if they're not fatally damaged

[03:58] But when the games on Eddie said it's hilarious She heard them right back together again, and that could go on for hours. Just like the firecrackers It's a game for this dog So Eddie with his iPhone brought me along as a gringo eyewitness and hopefully that day the dog would perform Anyway for you longtime listeners, you might remember maybe 300 shows ago I spoke about the things I bring along with me when I'm traveling, you know I always have a small piece of luggage in my car one of those little stewardess roll-on jobs a small one kind of my Bugout bag, you know enough clothes for three or four days and a lot of other little things that I've mentioned on this show Including security items and personal items that come in very handy and will for you, too And don't worry one of these days. We'll have up on our new website the new expat calm complete breakdown of all those little things

[04:44] I carry with me as well as those certain special little items You should have on hand if you're gonna live outside the US wouldn't you like to be able to get all that stuff in? One place well, we're working on it. Anyway in my so-called little bug out bag I actually don't like that term, but everybody seems to know what I'm talking about when I mention it anyway I have a very small plastic Bodum that's BOD UM coffee maker you coffee aficionado is up there in the states know what I'm talking about They call it the French press method It's considered the second best way to make coffee the best way being having one of those $1,000 Italian espresso machines, which is out of the question for 99% of people When you're down here in Latin America The land of the greatest coffee in the world and don't start sending me emails telling me that Kona coffee is better

[05:33] Well, it's certainly more pricey because it's picked with gringo labor at minimum wage instead of Latin labor at their minimum wage What is that now 12 to 15 bucks a day? So if you're an expat in Latin America, and you're gonna have a legal vice It might as well be coffee like expat Eddie says if you don't get into coffee down here It's like living across the street from Disneyland or from Caesars Palace in Vegas and never stepping foot in the place anyway I've always got this little portable plastic Bodum French press coffee maker on hand and for a long time I had the glass one because there was no plastic model and of course I broke it a few times Until I figured out if I packed it with something under pressure like socks or underwear clean or not so clean Depending if it's the beginning or the end of your trip, then there'd only be a very slight chance of breakage

[06:19] However, now with the no BPA plastic Bodum's they can really take a beating and I haven't broken one now in about five years Of course, I don't actually believe in putting food or beverages in any kind of plastic container But now surprise surprise the company Bodum has come through with a stainless steel portable French press That's got insulated walls so that it holds your coffee nice and warm for a long time In fact, I'm about to get that stainless steel one myself and retire the old plastic one or just give it away The cost 30 bucks now, I'm sure there's other companies out there that make stainless steel, but Bodum's a name to trust Now remember if you're down here in Latin America you could get the best coffee in the world for around four to six bucks a pound if You know where to get it and if you come to my next Latin insider seminar

[07:06] I just might take you to the coffee plantation myself now It's true Costco and Walmart and all the local grocery stores have huge selections of coffee plenty of coffee selection And there'll be ladies standing there grinding it fresh for you and giving out free cups However, it's not nearly as fresh or the top quality you can get if you drive right up to the farm and buy it direct Yes, most coffee plantations have a little kiosk out on the highway So you can buy their wares as you drive by of course They truck the majority of their crop probably 98% of it to big markets and such But they're always selling on the side of the road In fact, Latin America is the land of roadside vegetable stands, too So you will when you're driving out in the boonies come across little coconut pineapple Banana macadamia nut watermelon you name it kind of stand out in the boonies

[07:56] So take advantage you can't get any fresher or cheaper than that Oh, and by the way, if you decide to grow some of your own coffee A lot of gringos do that as a spare time enterprise All it really takes is an acre or two and you can make some money Of course, it's all manual labor and you'll hire people to do that Then you got to have the stuff roasted and it's dead easy to tell the difference between roasted and non-roasted non-roasted It looks kind of beige roasted dark chocolate to brown even black and for you real coffee experts out there You know, there's probably 20 different kinds of roast just go to Starbucks and look at the list I mean for starters, there's light medium cinnamon American continental European Expresso Viennese Italian French New Orleans And if you ask me or any real longtime coffee grower down here in Latin America

[08:44] You'll find out there's probably really only three or four kinds of roasts The rest of the ones you've seen at Starbucks or at gourmet coffee shops are a PR invention That's why if you go directly to a coffee plantation even a big one They'll have maybe only one two or at most three different kinds of roasts now according to most coffee growers Who know much more about coffee than I do They just laugh and make a face when you start talking about 20 or 30 different kinds of roasts You know what they're thinking those crazy ass gringos that said down here in Latin America when you're wondering about what kind of roast to get Just tell the owner or the guy behind the counter Give me what you think is best the usual suspect your regular old run-of-the-mill roast that's been winning all kinds of

[09:30] international awards for the last 50 years Tell them you want that in fact even if you go to a big coffee plantation And they've got a little outlet where you can walk in and buy little souvenirs and knick-knacks as well Let's have a cup of coffee chances are they're only gonna have two or three different kinds of roasts And if you say hey give me a Viennese roast will ya they're not gonna know what the hell you're talking about So then what about going to a gourmet coffee shop in the States and getting Viennese roast well They must be getting raw coffee beans and roasting it themselves or having it imported from some Vienna hot dog Because you see unroasted coffee beans can last three or four months, but once you roast them a couple of weeks only they say however I've had really good coffee down here from beans that were roasted one or even two months previous to that as long as they

[10:19] Were nicely vacuum-packed now you might think I'm really digressing here But actually I'm not if you remember I started by saying that I visited a slightly upper middle-class Latin house last week Here's the rest of the story even though they have the best coffee in the world down here in Latin America 95% of households do not know how to make a decent cup of coffee They use the percolator method which is pretty crappy. You know that it keeps getting reheated and reboiled in fact Almost no Latin house. I've ever been in has had a real espresso machine Not one that actually worked anyway, and you longtime listeners might have guessed why Upper middle-class latins and the wealthy ones will buy such devices because well It's the cool thing to do all the gringo families on TV have one in their kitchen

[11:08] And now just recently you could buy them down here at Costco and Walmart So upper middle-class and wealthy latins will buy those things Just like they'll buy gas and electric clothes dryers and dishwashers and trash compactors But in the end after the initial pleasure jolt of actually having one is over they'll quit using them Why the maid or cleaning lady with that second or third grade education will pull a boner and wreck the mechanism In fact I've had mine put a plastic apron in my gas clothes dryer And it melted like a solid mass against the inside wall ruined that load of clothes and stunk up the next two loads permanently Surprised the thing just didn't poop out all together And after that the cleaning lady was simply afraid to ever touch that thing again

[11:55] I wouldn't let her anyway and as far as reading the manual even though it's in Spanish and English All manuals come in four languages now, right? Well, it turns out she can't read multiple syllable words Such is that fine free public school education down here in Latin America that said There's many thousands of dryers and dishwashers in upscale kitchens in Latin America that don't get used anymore Just like the new upscale fad of having espresso coffee machines Oh, no, not the thousand dollar jobs the real good ones from Italy I'm talking about the cheapos from Oster and black and Decker that you see at Costco and Walmart You know those light-duty all-aluminum jobs made in China for 40 or 50 bucks So anyway in Latin America, they've got the greatest coffee in the world And the only way you're gonna be able to taste it like it should be is to have an espresso machine yourself

[12:44] Or to go to one of the local coffee shops They always have good Italian espresso makers and the next best thing of course a French press and so coffee snob that I am I'll always ask when I go to a restaurant is your coffee from an espresso machine or are you percolating it? If it's percolated, I won't get it. By the way, you can use an espresso machine to get a regular cup of coffee It's called cafe amaricano down here. It's just espresso with hot water and a regular coffee cup. Anyway back to the story I'm in this slightly upper middle class Latin home. They've got coffee and of course the good old percolator Meanwhile in my car, I've got my boat him so coffee snob that I am I'll use some Uncharacteristic diplomacy to work that boat them into the conversation when it's coffee and pastry time

[13:31] I have been known to say hey You just got to see this great new way to make single cups of coffee Let me go out in the car and get this French press thing. I want to show you now I haven't insulted the family at all. I've actually piqued their interest now They want to see what the gringo is gonna do how he's gonna make his coffee So I go to the car bring out the portable boat him and they're all standing around looking at it So what do I need little coffee? They've always got that and some hot water practically boiling Then the maid cleaning lady ever eager to help a gringo in distress We'll go get the water and start boiling it and yes, they'll have those five gallon jugs of what they consider pure water It's not But that's what you're stuck with I can't very well bring my water Purifier in the kitchen and start making my own now that would be an insult now

[14:19] Like I said when let's get water from one of those water purification companies There's no guarantee that it's any better than the water out of the tap except it's actually clear and not mucky I'm not gonna go through that analysis again I did that a number of times in past shows you know what that's all about it yet ready, right? And the thing that always cracks me up even 25 years into this game in Latin America When people offer you a glass of water or water at a restaurant? They'll say would you like some agua pura which translates precisely to pure water and I'm always thinking no I want water from the frickin gutter, buddy. I don't drink it pure. I'm tough You get the idea and you know the word agua pura or pure water is totally misleading anyway But there isn't a Latin person I've ever met who knows any different now when I met someone's house

[15:05] And they've got bottled water like that and that's probably half the population of Latin America The other half are way too poor to afford the buck a day whatever it costs to get those refills So the poor will drink it straight out of a tap if it's not too mucky and otherwise they'll boil it now Of course when I'm at someone's house, and they offer me a cup of coffee or some lemonade whatever I know they're using water from one of those water companies or they're boiling it out of the tap Really no good either way right however at least I know I'm only Contaminating myself once or twice a month when I'm out at somebody's house all other times I'm drinking my own personally purified water So the maid I was talking about ever eager to help a gringo in distress Tried to boil some water on the stove and guess what out of propane gas again

[15:52] And Latin's never have a spare tank even upscale wealthy ones. Just aren't prepared However, most long-term expats are so when Latin's run out of gas They're out of gas for a couple hours till the guy makes a delivery in the meantime She pours that water into a plastic cup and walks on over to the microwave And you know I'm not at all big on microwaves I don't cook with them But I have one in the house just in case heat some water or something and some people don't even like doing that anyway I did make a fuss. I said no problem. You've got no propane gas Okay, let's microwave it so I went over to help I open the microwave door guess what? Three medium-sized cockroaches staring at me right on the glass turntable. They were bold They didn't scatter and if they could talk I know they'd be saying what do you want?

[16:40] And if they could hear my answer, what do I want? I want to nuke your little asses to kingdom come now as it turns out These cockroaches down here in Latin America are so tough even with your microwave on high-powered 10 It seems like nothing more than a nice tanning bed for these critters So with all classes of Latin's you'll find kookarachas living in the microwave. Yes It seems quite a happy home for them though You won't see them in most expat microwaves because we train our maids just exactly how to clean them Not for example once a month, but every time you cook something now There's three cockroaches kind of looking at me at least I can sense they're looking at me though They don't seem to like being stared at now Do note that when cockroaches don't scatter when you flick the light on or you look in the microwave

[17:27] You know they've taken over the house. They basically become fearless now That's not to say all expect gringos have high standards Some have learned to live side by side with their kookaracha brethren You know all God's creatures are beautiful in their own way and all that crap well I beg to differ have you seen Hillary lately anyway some of the gringos. I know that have gone native well I don't even like to sit on their furniture That can be especially true of gringos who've gone native in a certain way That is they've married a middle or lower middle class latina who'd had a kid or two already So naturally the step kids are absorbed into the new gringo family household and those kids coming from poor neighborhoods have all those Bad habits and in fact have learned to live side by side with you guessed it

[18:13] Kookarachas, so anyway the teenage maid the cleaning lady swooped those arrogant cockroaches away with the swipe of her hand They faded into the dirty rusty cracks in the back of the microwave Then she proceeded to microwave my coffee water for about a minute and a half now We all do and eat things sometimes our heart is not at all into we don't want to offend our hosts, right? For example food that armies of flies have recently landed on and the dreaded chicken feet soup I tried about three drops of the broth once but my churning stomach wouldn't let me get anywhere near those feet Even thinking of it now gives me the willies But in this case I have to pat myself in the back I was slightly clever enough to do a switch I made three or four cups of my Bodham coffee and passed him around and of course poured one for myself

[19:02] But in the excitement no one noticed that I never drank it But in the end it was all for naught because that he told me even though the family praised my coffee up and down They were just being kind and really only humoring another crazy gringo with a funky machine Turns out none of them really liked it much but vastly preferred their own over hated over percolated coffee that had been sitting on The stove all day. Oh, and by the way, all you listeners out there concerned about Alzheimer's except for those mr Coffee clones with the glass beaker most percolators down here are aluminum as the Brits would say as our most all big cooking pots here in Latin America, too So just remember that when you're at a restaurant any restaurant when by the way Teflon frying pans are very big down here too because they're cheap and

[19:49] Latins see them all over the TV on Infomercials day in and day out and it's always a happy blonde haired gringo housewife doing the cooking Yep, the gringo advantage strikes again. Now. Remember we're talking about a 20 or 30 year lag time on Teflon products, right? In fact once I remember I was in a middle-class Latin kitchen I noticed a whole counter full of stacked up old Teflon coated pans. Well, they used to be coated with Teflon Now it was mostly all scraped off. I remember saying to the cook slash cleaning lady How do you like using those Teflon pans? She says yes, I like them then I said, yeah But look, there's no Teflon on them anymore. Where do you think all that Teflon went? And then she gave me the universal beats me shoulder shrug

[20:34] I said I know where it went little by little it got cooked in with the food and eaten in the end She just thought I was another crazy gringo. I guess I am Oh and speaking of maintenance guys cleaning ladies and handymen the other day I was at a relatively new expat friend of mine's house a guy that came down to one of my Latin American seminars Not so long ago. He was one of those guys that told me at the seminar He was coming back to live for sure and he did came back about six months later and he's here now Now he's renting in a very nice gated community. How do you find that rental? Well, he did what a lot of returning seminar attendees do they get a hold of me Then I get a hold of some of my seminar translator ladies We find out your needs and put a plan together for you an itinerary and when you get down here

[21:22] We have someone readily available someone that you know already from the seminar and help you not only to find a rental a car a property Whatever we make sure you don't pay gringo prices That's generally the ultimate goal right to find a nice safe neighborhood and still pay a third or less of what you'd pay up In the states and with the guy I'm talking about now That's exactly what we helped him do and the other day. He phoned me up and said Johnny. You're an engineer, right? Got a little problem here I'm looking for an electrician to come in and check some wiring because some of the lights went out into the bedrooms now I call my landlord and he's slow about everything. But like you said, that's the Latin American way So many times I just end up doing things myself fixing a little plumbing leak in the sink

[22:08] Whatever now the landlord said he will call an electrician to come in But I know he probably won't get here for two weeks Two bedrooms with no lights for two weeks. No good, but he also said if I found an electrician He'd just reimburse me or take it off the rent. Good deal, right? That's why I'm calling you Johnny Do you have a referral? Do you know anyone and the answer to that? Well, I've been down here 25 years or so, of course I know somebody so the very next day I popped over to my gringle friend's house with my maintenance guy Who was an experienced house builder now? He's not good at finished work, but he can do plumbing electrical roof work Whatever with his real specialty being concrete He is an artist at concrete work and fine detailed plastering and all that for get this 15 bucks a day

[22:54] So I went over there with my maintenance guy in the meantime I told my expat buddy to phone up an electrical contractor whether on oxl.com You know, that's kind of the Craigslist down here or in the yellow pages on the internet or in the newspaper classifieds So the next morning when my maintenance guy and I got there the electrical Contractor the expat called had been there already He found the problem and the main fuse box in the laundry room One of the circuit breakers had flipped and it wouldn't flip back and it wasn't the breaker So he followed the wires back up to the two bedrooms and noticed a trickle of small black ants who had over Six or seven years the age of the house had succeeded in eating the plastic colored insulation Off the red white and black wires leaving spots here and there of bare metal that had shorted

[23:41] Permanently, in fact when I looked at it, you could see that two of the wires were actually welded together They touched sparked and melted but not to worry the breaker box did its job and cut off the power Now the real point here is not to wing it yourself But to get some good advice from long-term expats like me. No, not the ones sitting at the gringo bar in Costa Rica either anyway, my gringo friend said the electrical contractor gave him an estimate of 110 bucks to pull out the wires that shorted and replace them to which my maintenance guy said wait a minute Let me call my friend a registered electrician that doesn't have a big ad in the yellow pages And the guy came over in his motorcycle about 35 minutes later went to the main box Disconnected the wires in that box pull them back through that tube at the other end in one of the rooms and pointed out that all

[24:32] The damage was done in a section of wire about five inches long not the whole length of the wire Which was about 50 feet and he said he'd just spliced some new ones in it would be good as new He'd give it a guarantee the whole job He said would take maybe three hours and he'd give the tube a shot of insecticide because he said if not those ants will come back total cost get this $18 now my gringo buddy who was renting didn't care who fixed it and he didn't really care about the price because it was either Gonna come off his rent or he was gonna get reimbursed, but look at the difference there It's gringo prices versus latin prices turns out the first electrician He called didn't even mention pulling the wires to see the extent of the damage He just instantly hit the guy with gringo prices Which is still by the way a half to a third of what an electrician up in the states would have charged for the same

[25:23] Job in fact I doubt in Cleveland you could get an electrician to ring your doorbell for under 50 bucks So that's the value of knowing long-term gringos here Especially off the gringo tourist trail well by the way about those amazing ants The electrician said you stick a mothball in your fuse box and they'll go away They won't come back that said speaking about my latin american seminar remember it starts on January 9th, and if you sign up by november 1st you get a $500 per person discount Just go to www the new expat.com and click on Johnny's latin american seminar There's a link top center on the page get on board and get that discount Oh, and by the way I got another volley of emails this week asking me how long I'm gonna keep putting on these seminars and my answer is always

[26:11] The same if you're gonna come down don't procrastinate too much because there will come a time And I think it's gonna be very soon that the next big tipping point is gonna fall whether it's economic calamity Terrorism or natural disaster war whatever there's something in the air and we all know it it's coming So when that happens you can bet that Obama it will severely crack down on Traveling outside the US because well big brother does want to keep its cows in the pen now You know can't milk them when they're gone, so do sign up for my January 2016 seminar You won't regret it like I said before it's all about the people you meet and the contacts you make and believe me You just can't find expert expat friends like that on your own coming down for a week or two to Costa Rica or Cancun Even those big international living seminars are nothing, but disguised real estate cattle calls, but you knew that already, right?

[27:03] Oh, yeah, whatever did happen to that dog that eats firecrackers and rounds up iguanas Well Eddie got the footage and you might be seeing it on YouTube I'll let you know now the dogs so butt ugly when it was born they named it moco Which means booger in Spanish now the owner asked Eddie and I if there was a kinder name In English for the word booger since every time he mentioned the dog's name in front of an English speaker They'd snicker and Eddie said yeah, you could have named it Hillary 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 if you want me to help you sort out your own Latin American plans schedule a one-on-one

[27:51] Console with me just send an email and let me know at the expat files at gmail.com. No spamos