#664 – Episode 664: Street Food, Domestic Workers, and Class 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 All right before we get to some of the heavier stuff here I just happen to be out and about in the big city having a coffee at one of those little street corner cafes You might know them or maybe you know the ones that serve breakfast lunch and dinner So cheaply for sometimes this little is two bucks complete with drinks desserts salads and everything included

[00:53] Yep in Latin America. You'll find little places like that in every street corner sometimes two or three of them in a row now I don't recommend you eat any of the food that's prepared in the kitchen at one of those places I don't I learned that the hard way many years ago So I'll stop in just to have a cup of coffee out of the expresso machine now That's something that's difficult to contaminate. You know coffee out of an expresso machine. That's okay and anything out of a bottle So why avoid eating prepared food at these places? Well, if you keep your eyes open, you'll see why the workers in those places touch everything They wipe the dirt off their kids faces pet the dog They touch their eyes shirts nose pants doorknobs hair They hit the bathroom where more often than that there'll be no paper towels Just a moist or humid cloth towel. Yeah, and then they touch the food

[01:42] So don't think because something's cooked and cooked very well and smells great that in the back room It hasn't been sneezed on used as a runway or racetrack by a few kookaratchas and flies now of course some kitchens are more hygienic than others and that might not have happened though one thing you can be sure of the items on the plate were surely shoved around and rearranged by a few dirty little fingers to make the plate balance out and especially watch out for the tortillas and the bread because for sure they've been sorted touched and tossed by more than one person before they Ever got to your table. So knowing that I know my limits and follow my rules Which is why I've only had Montezuma's revenge maybe once or twice in the past dozen or so years

[02:27] Meanwhile, I know many gringos Especially backpackers who get the squirts regularly Some even look at it as the price you pay for living down here and I'm telling you It's the price you pay for eating street food and following your nose instead of your common sense Because like I said, the food almost always smells great and when you're hungry so hard to resist but resist Which is why I always have some nuts or some fruits in the car I don't want to be so hungry that I have to resort to eating at one of those places That would be taking a big chance Oh and lately a lot of the street vendors are starting to use gloves and plastic to put the fruit in and such But don't be fooled by that. They don't use them properly. They're cross-contaminating all the time Hey, I've watched how these guys cut the fruit sure

[03:14] They're putting it in a plastic bag and they've got plastic gloves on but they're wiping the blade off on their pants In fact, I've even got a photo of a guy cleaning his fingernails with the knife He just used to cut up the fruit. All right, so as not to gross you out any more than I have Where were we? Oh, yeah So there I was sitting in one of those coffee shops and right next to me was a table Full of ladies in indigenous clothing turns out they were all cleaning ladies This was their early morning gathering place before they jumped on the chicken buses that would take them to their various job Locations throughout the city. You could say every morning. This was the place that had their cleaning lady coffee clutch Now get this here They were right smack in the middle of the greatest coffee country in the world and what were they drinking?

[04:01] Instant each topping off her cup with about five spoons of sugar Hmm by the way Every one of these ladies had at least one gold rimmed front tooth some of the older ladies a whole rack Hey, you know, I've said it before that's a status symbol amongst the poor and lower middle classes in Latin America And the funny thing is if they make it financially and move into better middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods Which is kind of rare by the way The first thing they ditch is a gold in the front teeth, but that's another story Anyway, there I was early in the morning sitting all along at the table with my smooth is silk dollar fifty double expresso Well as luck would have it that little gathering of five or six

[04:46] Cleaning ladies was close enough to me that I overheard their entire conversation and what did you know? The topic was salaries what they were being paid for being muchachas That's the word they use for maids and cleaning ladies here muchacha Also, if you check it out in the yellow pages, you know, they still have yellow pages down here You'll see in the help wanted ads that they're called empliadas domestica's meaning domestic employees Anyway, they're having a heated discussion about salaries and benefits now just a little background here Seems like throughout Latin America cleaning ladies that is domestics or muchachas are treated quite unfairly by most of their Latin bosses their bosses are almost always Latin by the way and Naturally, we gringos and expats often employ muchachas or domestics

[05:36] But we're heavily outnumbered by the Latin population, of course So only in the gringoized areas do muchachas ever get a chance to work for us Now I've mentioned the strict class system here and you think you've seen classism or racism up in the states You ain't seen nothing till you've been down here And unfortunately the vast majority of the classism and racism is directed towards the indigenous population They do stand out from the regular latinos or latinos If not because they're always darker and smaller But because of the indigenous clothes they wear and often the gold tooth thing However, as a rule, they're still quite happy and love to work and their employers who are sometimes pretty low class themselves

[06:22] still Treat them as second even third class citizens It's amazing and I've seen this a number of times a family. Let's say that makes 600 bucks a month You know, that's utter poverty for a family of four in the states kind of middle class here Even on 600 bucks a month They'll have a live-in cleaning lady or a lady that comes in a couple times a week and most of the time According to our standards, they treat her kind of badly sometimes like a slave Like I said, i've seen it myself I've been in houses where the owners are sort of white trash by our first world standards They live in a cold water dump That's virtually impossible to keep clean since they've got no screens on the windows Generally a couple of untrained dogs running around all over the place

[07:11] Most likely on municipal water like most latin city dwellers are meaning the water is only running full pressure out of the tap Probably 12 hours or less a day And sadly i've seen many people who have muchachas or cleaning ladies and the family Doesn't have a washing machine or has one and it's broken So the muchacha does all the clothes by hand in the big wash basin outside known as a pila So she's doing all the laundry by hand mopping and scrubbing and sweeping away She's cooking ironing taking care of the kids and doing the shopping by chicken bus because She can't use the car if the family even has one and the boss lady of the house It's always the boss lady who's in charge, you know Well shout out orders often quite edgily

[07:56] In fact i've been in houses where the boss lady has apologized for the condition of the house and blamed it on the cleaning lady In fact, I remember one boss lady called her muchacha a mula and an idiota in front of me translation idiot ass Yeah, right the house is a dump not because the dogs are crapping all over the place and the house needs paint and new wiring and plumbing It's because the muchacha is an idiot ass Oh by the way, you might wonder how can a family i'm making only around 600 a month afford a muchacha or a cleaning lady How can that be if the minimum wage is 250 to 300 bucks a month? That would be a third to a half of a 600 a month salary, right? Aha, let me explain something you're never going to hear about anywhere else. I guarantee it

[08:44] The fact is there are minimum wage laws, but they only apply or I should say can be enforced For workers on the books people on the tax rolls That would be mikiles or factories franchises like mcdonald's in the IHOP That would be employers who pay workers with a payroll check and not buy cash So once guild workers on the books get minimum wage plus what they call Prestaciones translation benefits like christmas bonus summer bonus Paid vacation days days off for holidays and participation in those notoriously medieval national health care systems so like fica in the us Which is a corrupt system that latin governments have made even a worse copy of that means for people working on the books here in latin

[09:33] America employee and employer kick in some percentage points so that latin governments can mismanage that money, too But back to that question, how can someone earning 600 bucks a month pay minimum wage 250 to 300 bucks a month to a cleaning Lady the truth is only a tiny percentage of cleaning ladies make the minimum wage In fact, that's exactly what these ladies were talking about at the little restaurant slash coffee shop turns out Cleaning ladies throughout latin america are talking about unionizing. Yep, super big lag time there But bound to happen since there are many abuses Now when you're in the big city and you hire moochacha slash cleaning lady You'll find almost none of them make minimum wage except the ones you contract from a cleaning service

[10:20] Because that service will be on the books paying taxes etc and will have to pay minimum wage Of course, you'll pay more than that because the owner of the company will get his cut By the way, that's how many gringos find their first cleaning lady because they don't know who to ask And don't know how to find one because their spanish sucks They check the papers and local olex craigslist and such for housekeeping services Funny enough in gringoized areas It's always a gringo who starts a business like that because he realizes that's a niche and he can make money at it I mean, what's a gringo or gringo to do especially if they don't speak spanish They'll either ask another gringo for a recommendation or they'll go to one of those Housekeeping services where someone speaks english and for sure they'll pay a lot more than minimum wage

[11:06] So it's a fact probably only one or two percent of all cleaning ladies in latin america make minimum wage really a pretty pathetic statistic Considering all the work they do so you've got that one or two percent Probably most of them working for gringos on the gringo tourist trail while off the gringo tourist trail They're at the mercy of what the going rate is in the area and what their employers want to pay Which brings us back to the question of how a family making 600 a month Can pay for a full time or live in cleaning lady? Well get this when I was listening to these cleaning ladies in the restaurant I heard one say that her sister only makes 50 bucks a month Of course, she's a live-in and she gets room and board but $50 a month then another one of the ladies spoke up and said she only made 150 a month

[11:55] Then another one said I make 200 and the last lady said well I only make about 100 and you know when you hear things like that you start feeling sorry for that whole segment of the population Kind of the backbone of the lower class society Most of these ladies work long hours and often they're on the chicken bus to and from work An extra hour or two a day also only the lucky ones seem to live near their places of employment Now these weren't live-in moochachas. Obviously, they were taking the bus as for live-in moochachas That's a different story altogether. They don't get to go home at night They're on a call 24 seven at the master's house dishes ironing mopping cleaning windows and toilets Even shopping and being a nanny for the kids. That's part of the job, too Now it's true that most gringos. I know pay the minimum wage even more because well to us. It's cheap

[12:47] actually unbelievably Ridiculously cheap and as mentioned in a previous show sometimes we overpay and distort the wage structure But back to that little cafe slash diner Which by the way is in a very busy section in a large latin american town Yet it was so far off the gringo tourist trail that I didn't see a single gringo that whole day I spent in the city So with my ears perked up by I recognized they were having an ongoing discussion about a new thing Called a union in spanish a sin decato The number one benefit of course was that all cleaning ladies would finally get minimum wage However, not once in that whole discussion that I hear any one of those ladies say yes

[13:33] But if we get minimum wage, then all the people that employ us who make around 600 to maybe 1500 a month they just couldn't afford cleaning ladies anymore. And that's a huge section of the latin population So it was a conversation with a lot of loose ends and much disinformation Oh and speaking of gringos bidding up labor prices There is a way, you know to find out if that's the case where you're setting up your plan B Well good old expat eddie who has a ton of experience in hiring and firing too He says when you're interviewing anyone for a mochacha job An entry-level job a grand job if when you're asking them about their previous salary history They start talking about dollars or pesos or colonis per hour

[14:22] Well, that's purely a gringo influence because latins don't get paid by the hour. They get paid by the day week Two weeks or month now by far the most common way latins are paid is by the kinsena Which is every 15 days and the second most common way to get paid is by the month That would be mensulmente Which is why on the 15th and the first when you're driving around you'll see there are big lines of grunt workers in front of banks And I mean big lines sometimes 10 20 30 even 50 deep all waiting to Get some of their direct deposit money out in cash Because you see as opposed to what's happening up in the first world It's still very much a cash-based society with the middle lower middle classes and poor

[15:10] So about 70 percent of latin society depends on cash Meanwhile, it's part of the middle class upper middle class and the wealthy who are getting eaten alive by credit card interest rates They're the ones who'll buy a coffee and a pastry at dunkin donuts for a buck 50 and put it on plastic So, where were we? Oh, yeah that group of moo cha cha slash cleaning ladies talking about unions Well, first of all, you got to wonder who's organizing these ladies because through ngo donations and union dues and such The organizers are the ones who are going to make the real money like all unions Eventually, the leaders will become corrupt and live like little princes go on junkets stay at four star hotels You know the drill now i'm not saying these ladies don't deserve a union

[15:56] Yeah, but unions are corrupt. So whatever they're getting promised they might get it at first But eventually they'll be very disappointed just like they are with their maggotist politicians If that's a word if it is I just coined it I think everyone deserves to make up a word once in a while, don't you? So it was obvious one of the ladies the big talker was promoting the union big time saying hey We'll get minimum wage. Finally plus we'll be on the books We'll get prestaceans, which means we'll get on the national health care paid holidays vacation christmas bonus and summer bonus called by the way Alguinaldo and bono cattorce But then one of the ladies spoke up and said I already get minimum wage and my boss gives me A christmas and summer bonus and a lot of extra little things, too

[16:42] Then one of the other ladies said yeah, but you're lucky your boss and his family are from ingolatera Primer mundistas Meaning first world people from england and it did seem the others were kind of jealous Then she said the family even paid for her daughter's hospital bills when she had her baby And not at the public hospital either. It was one of the expensive private ones She said with I noticed some pride in her voice. She was lucky. You could say she won the muchacha lottery She was working for a foreigner So the debate raged on and four out of five of those ladies were all for the union But the one respectfully stated she probably wouldn't join All right. Here's another muchacha story that you just have to hear

[17:30] I know this latin american colonel stationed at a base far away from any big latin city It's a base way out in the jungle probably toured 300 guys stationed there now by hook and crook I met this guy. He invited me to a christmas party at his family home in san Pedro sulla honduras So he was stationed at this base most of the time But he had his wife and two kids living in the big city san Pedro sulla So i'm at this christmas party and I noticed his muchacha has a nice little maid's uniform on demeaning to us Yes, but to latin's well, that's how they delineate the class system She couldn't have been 80 pounds and she looked no older than 12 So I asked the colonel how much she made and he said 150 bucks a month and I said she from around here

[18:17] He said oh no You don't want muchachas from the big city You want a farm girl and you want to get them young so they don't bring any bad habits along with them Then he told me she's a girl from one of the tiny towns up by the military base He said the small town ladies Want their daughters to get jobs in the big city because there's not a lot of work way out in the boonies on the farms But they're hayseeds and they've got no contacts in the big city However, they know us officers have houses in some of the bigger cities and that we do employ muchachas and nannies and such He said generally the farm girls go to school up to around the sixth grade They need to get a job most don't want the lives their parents had and they want to go to the big city So you give them a nice place to live room and board They get a week and a month off so they can go back to the old pueblo and connect with their family and friends again

[19:07] Normally you make the deal with the young girl's mother and everything say, okay It's a nice job. He says nice atmosphere with a steady paycheck Nowhere near the hard work she'd be doing if she worked on the farm Well, he was right about that now. I watched this guy and his wife and kids in action They actually treated this girl decent enough They never yelled at her or talked down to her not like i'd witnessed with some other latin families But you know, it's really a shocking thing to hear that You know make a deal like that with the mother of a 12 13 or 14 year old Of course in this case if she's making 150 bucks a month I'm sure she sent a hundred of it back to her mother. That was the deal she had with her family So then what happens to these young girls when they get to be of dating and mating age, you know

[19:53] 16 17 18. Well, the colonel told me that's how he lost his last muchacha Well, she had that weekend a month off and went back home hooked up with a young hayseed got pregnant And now she's down on the farm and surely pregnant again He said he gave her a nice send off some severance pay, but it's an unworkable situation having a pregnant muchacha in the house So now when you hear a story like that You don't have to wonder why the class system is alive and well and why most of these countries will remain third world Yep, it's the same pattern in most all latin countries young girls living out in the boonies with little or no opportunity and little education Ending up as muchacha is in the big city and here in latin america that seems absolutely normal No one questions it. I take that back. Maybe the union organizers are because it certainly is a nasty

[20:42] Regressive system when you think about it Is it any wonder why nearly every muchacha would give her right arm to work for a gringo or a foreigner? In fact for those of you watching this on my youtube channel right now You'll see a photo from a big city latin newspaper and you'll see a picture of an indigenous lady She looks kind of sad and the caption says in spanish, of course Teresa Chavez 62 years old She makes 300 quetzales a month. That's around 45 bucks a month as a muchacha a domestic employee It says her work hours are from six in the morning to eight at night without a break She's featured in this news article because she's one of the ladies that's telling her story To one of the union organizers from what they call in spanish syndicado de trabajadores domesticas

[21:33] That would be the domestic workers union So unions are popping up But like it says in the article only about five percent or less of eligible domestic employees will sign up For one thing they don't know what unions are really and don't know what they can do And many of the domestic employees over 50 can't read Now one lady in this article who didn't want to give her name says i'm afraid to join because maybe my boss won't like it And he'll fire me Well, that's always been a concern every time a union starts up, right? So just to let you know With injustices in the labor force like they are down here unions are creeping in and just like in the states They start out with the best of intentions and they become corrupt By the way, just like up in the states. It's nearly all the government employees who are in unions

[22:24] And the unions have also tied up a lot of the mikilas that is sweatshop workers So then what have the unions done for sweatshop workers? Well, they do get the minimum wage and Prestaciones, which means you know the christmas and summer bonuses and they get on that crappy medieval national health care system And like up in the states employers have to contribute to a dead broke long since bankrupt social security system And yes unions have certain rights like collective bargaining and they can legally go on strike But what have unions really done for latin workers? Well, there's one very bad secondary effect Politicians have learned a way to capture votes is to promise a minimum wage increase around election time because they know

[23:10] Unionized government workers will certainly vote for them and factory mikilas so-called sweatshop workers, too But a politician offering a minimum wage increase is not a fail safe mechanism to get voted in again because about 40 percent Of most latin american labor forces are off the books and a minimum wage increase wouldn't affect them at all So anyway, just a little bit more of the good the bad the ugly here in latin america I want to round things out But I have to say there are plenty of gringles and expats who pay their cleaning ladies workers and muchachas less than minimum wage And not because they're trying to rip the employee off It's just that normally you ask an employee what they expect to receive And if it's less than the minimum wage because that's the prevailing wage in the area

[23:56] What you're gonna do tell them you'll pay them more Maybe maybe not but of course as mentioned in a previous show We always give them a lot of perks and extras that they'll never get working as maintenance guys or muchachas for latin bosses All right, that said you gotta hear this email. This guy just sent me. He says dear johnny Imagine for a second you have a brother and he's an alcoholic He has his moments when he's straight, but still you keep your distance from him You don't mind him for the occasional family gathering or holiday You still love him, but he's a shadow of what he once was Now bloated obese and deteriorating on his best days He irritates easily He's got a short fuse and if he gets pissed off he can still kick the crap out of you

[24:43] With a sudden burst of impulse energy He's heavily in debt borrowed from all his friends and his plastics all maxed out You of course have had enough you don't want to be around him anymore. He's going down and cannot be rehabilitated You've had many interventions, but to no avail He's in denial and getting worse The doctors say his liver is shot and his other organs will soon be failing Then the writer says now johnny I'm working hard on my plan b and that drunken brother story is how I describe my relationship to the united states when people ask me Why I want to leave so the us is like my terminally alcoholic brother And I always have a soft spot for him and what he once was But I don't want to be near him anymore because I know sooner or later

[25:30] I'll be dragged down with him and it will all end badly So johnny instead of telling people all the things wrong with the us and all the reasons I want to leave I've tried that and eyes glaze over and people think you're crazy So when they ask I tell them the alcoholic brother version of this story And you know, most of them seem to get it and they listen all the way through People would much rather listen to a story that's imbibed with facts Then just a bunch of lone standing facts themselves Keep it up johnny. See you at the july seminar double anonymous like that one Speaking of my july latin american seminar as this show goes out on june 2nd We've got about five more weeks to go. So there's still time to sign up Just go to www.thenewexpat.com and click on johnny's 2017 seminar link

[26:20] And you'll also see on that info sheet a reference to those very famous john gault pre and post seminar trips You won't want to miss going on one or both of those if you're thinking about setting up a business in latin america I guarantee you'll walk away with way too many business ideas And if you just can't swing coming down to the seminar, you should really sign up for my expat essentials course Just go to www.expatplanb.com and don't forget the three w's Go there and get your three free video introductions to my nine hour expat essentials course You want to get your plan b in high gear? Just take the expat essentials course Oh and don't forget no matter how far along you are on your plan b and even if you haven't got it started yet

[27:07] Do what many people are doing set up a private phone or skype consultation with me and we'll go over your plan individually and you'll find my plan b phone consult questionnaire by going to www.thenewexpat.com You'll see the link there to pull it up. Oh and lastly if you're coming down to my july 2017 seminar The phone or skype consultation, which I normally charge for will be free This is the expat files living in latin america If you want me to help you out with your own plan b just schedule a one-on-one consult Send me an email at the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to learn how to move forward with your own plan b from right up there in the states go to www.expatplanb.com and check out my three videos. See ya nos vemos