#79 – Episode 79: Navigating Cultural Norms and Social Challenges in Latin America

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

[00:06] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America. The show that tells you what it's really like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. I tell it just like it is, not the version they give you in those glossy travel magazines, or the picture they paint for you in those international traveler websites, where they're only trying to sell you something. What's it really like for expats living in Latin America? Well, it's time to take off those rose colored glasses and find out. So let's get started. You know, it seems like I never fail to mention that down here in Latin America, over 50% of the population lives down about $2 a day. Now, I've also mentioned a number of times that the average Latin American only has about a fourth to a sixth grade education.

[00:52] And in fact, in classified advertisements down here, you'll always see the government advertising for public workers like policemen, sanitation workers and the like, and they'll have a minimum requirement stated right in ads like that, that anyone interested must have a sixth grade education to apply, which always shocks expats because they think it must be a joke or some kind of mistake the first time they see it. Anyway, considering the very low state of formal learning down here, it's common knowledge throughout the world that the less education you have, the more socially and culturally ignorant you tend to be. And therefore, the more prone you are to bad social habits like, for example, urinating in public and not caring who's watching, or throwing litter out your car window, or eating with your fingers and licking them after you're done. Which unfortunately is another bad habit a lot of males down here in Latin America have.

[01:41] And sitting in a restaurant watching that stuff go on can drive an expat up the wall, believe me. Not to mention, it's the same bad habit one or two of my own cruder friends up in the first world used to be guilty of. That is, until some first world woman called them out on it, and they were embarrassed into changing their ways. Because us guys up in the first world know, all it takes is a hot woman, or your mother, to make you presentable in mixed company. But what about the case when a guy just has poor hygiene in general, even when there's plenty of soap and water available? Which is another bad habit that males down here seem to have, but for some reason is quite rare with females. So if the ladies can remain fresh and fragrant, even the lower classes who don't have much access to fresh water, there's no excuse for their guys to be stink balls. But unfortunately, so many of them are.

[02:28] Which brings me to another very bad habit that Latin men have, and that's spitting in public. And though it's one of those disgusting habits that exists mostly with that 50% of the Latin population that's considered lower class, those living on 2 or 3 bucks a day and only having a 4th to a 6th grade education that is, well unfortunately, a good percentage of wealthy guys do it too. Now bad habits are bad habits, and most of the time you can ignore them, especially if you're a visitor in someone else's country. But spitting with abandon in public just seems to drive expats up the wall, especially expat women. And when it comes to men in that hefty 50% of the poor population, the ones most guilty of spitting 30 or 40 times a day, well it doesn't matter if they're indoors or outdoors, walking along with their mother, their girlfriend, or their wives, they just let loose with a

[03:17] goober any time they feel like it. But when these guys get with their buddies or with their coworkers, that's when it really gets out of hand. And the chain reaction begins, unfortunately it's like yawning. Once one person starts, everybody gets infected. So while you expat and expat wannabes, when you're down in Latin America, I do not recommend that you walk barefoot, notwithstanding the broken glass, the dog crap, and the cow pies, which all pose their own kind of hazards when you're walking around Latin America, especially in the cities. But you have to watch out for those disgusting gobs of spit, particularly in the lower income parts of town, where spitting is an epidemic with all the young boys. The only thing I configure is that young boys think it's the manly thing to do. I've noticed it's a kind of body language they use to emphasize a point, using it to

[04:03] accent something that they've said in conversation. It's sort of the Latin American version of the way Italians make gestures with their hands. So often what you'll see is a group of 3 or 4 or 5 young adults or teenagers, and you'll hear one of them making a statement, and he just might punctuate that with laying a small goober on the ground. And I know that sounds pretty disgusting, but there is one saving grace. Thankfully when these guys spit, they're not pulling up big loogies or lungars from deep down in their throats, which would really be beyond disgusting. At least they don't do that. Thank god for hot sidewalks and a strong sun, huh? But if you think about it, which you shouldn't do for too long, it's even more of a problem than it first seems. So the thing is, even though the sidewalks and streets look pretty dry, the truth is that down here, if you set up a stop action camera on a busy street corner, you'd be

[04:49] beyond disgusted at how many telltale spit marks there really were. But thanks to heat and the sun and super fast evaporation, most of the time there's no obvious sign of what's really been happening. And it's a good thing too, because if you did watch some of that time lapse photography, you'd probably stay in a lot more. And I guarantee you, that you'd take your shoes off before you got back into your own house, just like the Japanese do. Those guys sure have the right idea, don't they? But I'm not suggesting any of that, I'm just telling you that a huge population of the males down here have very bad unhygienic habits. And what makes it even worse when caught in the actor not in the least embarrassed about it? In fact, never once in my 20 years down here have I ever heard anybody get called out on it. And you think every wife, mother and girlfriend would blow a gasket, but you just never see

[05:36] it. And that's even more striking considering the fact that women never spit. Which of course means they think it's uncouth, and disgusting, and justifiably so. Even if they're not educated enough to know that just one drop contains millions of bacteria and viruses. But they allow their boys and men to do it. And you know over the years in my various discussions with other expats, usually at those expat bars which I don't recommend that you hang out in, anyway that macho spitting phenomena has come up in expat conversations now and again, and it always brings ugly looks and grimaces all around. Especially if there's a bunch of tourists or an expat woman at the table. Anyway one female expat down here said you know, women could put a stop to that in a second. If my boyfriend ever did that, I'd know how to handle it.

[06:22] And basically she was right, because women hold the ultimate power over men. Sexual power. Then she went on to say look Johnny, we got you guys to use deodorants. We got you guys to open car doors for us. We got you to shave and trim your finger and toenails too. We got you guys to pay for dinners for us. And valentine's gifts. And roses. You even take showers every day and change your underwear regularly. Some of you anyway. We even get some of you losers to floss. And trim your nose hairs. You'd never would have done that stuff on your own. It took the force of women and our sexuality to push you guys into that. So why don't women jump all over their men down here in Latin America? Why can't these women use their power to force these guys to up their hygiene standards? Get them to brush their teeth and floss, use mouthwash and deodorant on a regular basis.

[07:10] Just the basics. How about just washing your hands after you use the bathroom? That in itself would be a huge leap forward for Latin mankind. But soon enough, even these new ex-pat ladies who see all the faults in the system realize that it's not like the first world at all. There's no equality down here between the sexes. This is a macho-based society and the men are in control. And basically, the women don't want to rock the boat because so many of them get beaten and abused when they complain about the things that their men do within the confines of their own home. Basically, the women down here are afraid of their men, especially when the guy's drunk. And that's an unaddressed epidemic down here too. And heaven forbid a Latin woman going to the authorities and trying to complain. Even after a guy's beaten her to a pulp, sent her to the hospital or even sexually abused

[07:56] her children. There's no 800 number to call or a physical or sexual abuse hotline. And if you call the police in those domestic abuse cases, you're lucky if the cops show up at all and if they do, it'll probably be 6 hours later. And because the vast majority of cops down here are male. And from what I understand, many of them like to beat their wives too. It shouldn't surprise you then that they almost always side with the guy when there's an abuse issue. In fact, once I was at a party and I asked a police captain just that, I asked him how often do police officers themselves get into domestic violence problems with their own wives or girlfriends. And he said something to the effect that a policeman's wife wouldn't dare file a charge against her husband. And then he said if a policeman did happen to hit his wife, she probably deserved it. And that was coming from a police captain.

[08:42] Talk about the dark ages. The fact is, the state of awareness with physical and sexual abuse cases down here is about the same as it was 30 or 40 years ago back in the United States. Back then too, a guy could usually get away with beating his wife and the authorities would either go really light on him or look the other way, as long as the husband or boyfriend didn't put her in the hospital or kill her. But of course, now up in the first world, we have all kinds of hotline numbers, restraining orders and halfway houses to help battered women. But down here in Latin America, there's only just a lot of talk about that kind of stuff. What you might hear coming from government press releases and so-called domestic violence organizations is pure lip service. No matter what government spokesman or even people coming from the first world like the UN say, nothing has the force of law, so physical and sexual abuse within families is epidemic,

[09:34] especially in the poorer uneducated 50% of the population. The sad fact is, even when a man is a known and repeated wife beater or even a sexual offender, he almost never gets prosecuted for it unless she's severely injured and hospitalized or he happens to kill her. And even if he kills her, if he can prove that it was a crime of passion or that she was a loud-mouthed witch of a troublemaker, which believe it or not is often what a guy uses for his defense down here, and as flimsy and subjective as that sounds, the courts will generally go very easy on him. And sometimes he'll walk with just probation, because it's his word against hers and witnesses are just afraid to come forward. And unfortunately, just as every Latin American middle class and lower class family has a

[10:20] stand-up drunk or two in it, whether it's an uncle, brother, or dad, so too does every Latin American family have a wife beater in it, and it's something no one ever talks about but everybody's aware of. There's always a guy with a hair-trigger temper, which he usually takes out on the women folk. And all the big cities in Latin America have their own versions of women's shelters, protective custody, and human rights organizations, but they're so weak and underfunded that they're almost not worth mentioning. And though international organizations as usual come down here and have tried to set up programs to help battered women, and all the Latin American constitutions have enacted equal rights laws aplenty, the laws are practically never enforced, so women rarely complain to the police or authorities, and in the meantime, they're just going to get beat up again the

[11:06] next time the old man gets drunk, and so they learn to accept it. But like I said, there are some internationally funded women's shelters and agencies down here, and I spoke to one of the women in charge of one of these homes, and she said in her particular Latin city of about a million people, they have a woman's abuse telephone hotline number 2, and they get about 50 complaints a day from battered women. And these battered women are told to come down to the shelter right away, but they almost never do, and when they do, they usually end up right back at home in a few hours, right into the eye of the storm again, because if they didn't go back and make dinner, their kids wouldn't have any food on the table. So these women's shelters down here, usually supported by a first world charitable organization, are just short stopovers for battered women who need to get a break from a bad situation, and the lady in charge of the shelter that I visited, she's by the way an expat European

[11:56] woman funded by a protestant church group out of Germany, she said it's hard to get these women to actually come down unless they're beaten to a pulp, they just need someone to talk to in a moment of pain, and so they sit home and grin and bear it. But those 50 abuse complaints a day, is just the tip of the iceberg. The expat lady in charge told me that only about 1 in 20 abused women will ever call or make a complaint, they're just too afraid and they figure that's how men are. Latin guys get drunk, get irritable, and just beat on women, which is the prevailing thought down here with women from the middle and lower classes. So in the case of her city, if only 1 in 20 women calls in a complaint, that means there's at least a thousand women in that city getting battered every day, but 95% of them are keeping quiet about it, and though it seems to be a phenomena of the lower and middle classes,

[12:45] the expat lady told me abuse is present in the upper classes too, though less so because when you have money, that's one less major subject to fight about. But those women, the ones whose husbands have money, never call the women shelter and complain, because in the upper classes it's all about appearances, about putting on a good show, and those ladies, the ones with the money, are afraid if they go public with it, there'll be such embarrassment in the family that their husbands will file for divorce, and those women and their children will take a drastic cut in lifestyle when the guy moves out. So they just grin and bear it too. In Latin America, the married life of the upper classes can be quite different than the married life in the middle and lower classes. Many times after a few years of marriage, the husband and wife in an upper class family don't get along at all, which can be a positive indicator that the guy, the wealthy

[13:33] Latin husband, has got himself a young mistress, and often times these wealthy guys will have their young mistresses set up in an apartment somewhere. And that's another thing almost no one ever talks about, even in families where it's very obvious that it's happening, even though everyone in the immediate family, even the children, have a good idea of what's going on. Usually the wealthier couples tend to stay together even through affairs and mistresses. It boils down to this, because they have money and can afford second and third homes and certifications all over the place, including the first world. The couple can stay married in principle, show up together at certain necessary events, and maintain the pretense that everything is going along fine. Though living that kind of life does produce a lot of psychological damage, especially in the children, and even more so if there are young sons in the family who end up perpetuating

[14:22] the very same thing when they become adults. In fact, in the monied classes, it's a rite of passage. A guy gets married, has kids, after a few years he picks up a younger mistress and installs her in an apartment somewhere in the city and gives her her own credit card. And the funny thing is, eventually, when the guy's young sons are old enough, let's say 14-15 years old, they often get to meet their dad's young mistress, and they not only approve of it, but sometimes become very good friends with her. And meanwhile, the jilted mother is down at Gold's Gym an hour or two a day, working out with some 30 or 40 something women in her very same position, trying to beat the aging clock any way they can, with exercise, Botox, plastic surgery, or any of the above, always harboring a fear that their man will eventually wander, very likely repeating the

[15:11] same process that happened with their own dads. And this kind of thing is so persistent that it has its psychological effects not only on the sons of these married couples, but on their daughters too. They too know that their father has a mistress, and that her mother hates it, but she's going along with it for appearances. Women in that position often bite the bullet because they know a divorce will make her and her kids financially unstable. And even though Latin America does have community property laws when you get divorced, and the woman is supposed to get half of everything, but it almost never works out that way because this is Latin America, and there are 101 ways to get around that if you have a good lawyer. And for the guys who don't have money, if they get a divorce, there's nothing for the wife to get anyway. And add that to the fact that Latin America is a very Catholic society, so the divorce

[15:56] rate, though climbing, is still very low, about half of what it is in the first world. Even though you can bet your bottom dollar that there's a hell of a lot more cheating going on down here. Now it might surprise you to know that young teenage daughters of the middle and upper classes almost always figure it out when their dad has a mistress. They're not stupid, they hear the rumors, and they realize their mother and father aren't getting along, and that daddy's not around much at all anymore. And they almost never talk about it, it's a classic case of denial. And the main effect that it has on these young women is that they have an abiding lifelong mistrust of men, and early on develop really good BS detectors, and are ready to click into a morbid state of jealousy at the drop of a hat. A kind of adrenaline charge jealousy that you almost never see up in the first world,

[16:43] thank god. But these latin guys, imperfect as they are, are the only pool of males available down here once the mating games start. So they go through the usual teenage routine of boyfriend and girlfriend, and nearly 100% of the time there'll be a breakup because the guy cheated on her. Strangely enough it's almost always the guy's fault. And I've heard this same story a hundred times, from latin men and women alike. The women are usually honest and sincere enough to break it off if they really don't love the guy, while the guy, even if he loves the girl, will have his affairs on the side, and usually the more the merrier. And they're not very sly about it, so they often get caught. And in fact my own latin male friends in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, and they're mostly from the upper classes by the way, they confirmed this analysis exactly.

[17:29] In fact about 30% of them told me that once they reached 16 for their birthday, their father actually took them to a strip club and got them laid. Now I know this might sound somewhat repulsive to some of you expats up there, especially you lady expats and expat wannabes, but I'm just telling it like it is. And in the middle and lower classes, men have their mistresses too, however they don't have enough money to put them up in apartments, give them cars and spending allowances and such. But you should know that having mistresses down here is so common with every class of men that it's hardly even mentioned. And every time I bring it up in front of my latin friends, they always say, well this is latin america. Which always strikes me funny, because on the back of every car down here, whether it's a 20 year old junky nissan or a late model range rover, you can always find some kind

[18:16] of religious symbol. A sticker that says Jesus, or a fish or a rosary or some kind of bible quotation. And with the middle and lower classes, it's even worse. Every bus, long haul trailer and tuk tuk is named after Jesus, Mary or some saint. And you can barely talk to a latin person for 5 minutes without getting a liberal sprinkling of religious cliches or bible terms and phrases thrown in for good measure. I mean every time you walk away from someone they say adios, which means go with god. And when a latin is surprised they say tios mio, which means my god. And they're forever slipping in the phrase gracias adios, which means thank god. Or madre de dios, which means mother of god. So morally speaking it's a schizophrenic society. On the one hand they're all firm believers in the bible and everything it's got to say. And they name their streets, towns, buses, cars, schools, roads and parks after biblical

[19:05] figures. On the other hand the men beat and abuse their wives and a good percentage of them jump from a fair to a fair with impunity. I hardly think Jesus would approve. However and speaking of gender discrimination now. In all the latin american countries equal opportunity laws are in place. But as usual no one enforces them. So in every type of job, all throughout society down here, women get paid less than men. And in addition, on the job they don't advance nearly as fast as latin men. Not only do they get promoted less often, there's a glass ceiling. That is unless you're a first world woman. Then those latin positive first world stereotypes kick in and you're in business. But if you're a latin woman and you try to fight a job discrimination case, you might as well forget about it because you'll almost never get satisfaction.

[19:52] And if you open your mouth the company or the boss you work for is bound to find a way to fire you. That's the way it is in the private sector. Now even in the government sector, there are a lot of jobs where women make less than men. Which seems unreal because you'd think at least the government would follow its own rules. But this is latin america. And because intrinsically the latin society is very macho and male dominated. Tradition not the law dominates down here. And I'm always asked by fresh expats, especially women expats, how can double standards like that exist in the first world even in governments. And when fresh expats actually see the problems first hand themselves, they always blame the latin men. And why not? They're the ones who seem to be getting away with it all. But after you've been down here long enough, if you keep your eyes open, you start to realize

[20:38] that it's not the latin man's fault at all. It's the latin women. It's the mothers and the grandmothers and the women in the family that reinforce the macho stereotype. Because you see the tradition down here is that little boys always get preferential treatment over little girls. And though they love their baby girls, as soon as a boy is born, there's a prince in the family. An heir to the dynasty, even if the dynasty is a tin shack and the head of the family only makes 200 bucks a month. Little boys are treated extra special down here by the women. They don't have to eat everything on their plate, clean their rooms, wash their clothes, or pick up after themselves if they've made a mess like the little girls in the family who make a mess always have to do. And it's even worse when a family has a living maid. And all the wealthy people have maids, even most middle class people making over 500 bucks

[21:26] a month. And I don't know if any of you listeners up there have ever had a living maid before, but I can tell you this. Once you've had one for a while, you get to be pretty damn lazy around the house. You walk in, you put your coat over a chair, and in no time, the cleaning lady's got it on a hanger in the closet. You soon figure out that you don't have to cook your food, wash your plates, clean the toilet bowl, or do any of the basic housekeeping chores you had to do as a kid and you had as an adult up in the first world. The fact is, having a maid, especially a living maid, just seems to make people lazy. It's almost like you're on a permanent vacation, living in a nice hotel. You know how that is. You wake up in the morning, clothes and suitcases everywhere, you make a big mess, and you make a disaster out of the bathroom. You don't think to clean up or organize anything, because you're out the door in a hurry on

[22:12] a sightseeing tour to the beach, and when you return at 6 o'clock at night, your hotel room or condo is spic and span. It's like a model home, everything in its place. Now imagine you're living in Latin America, and every day is like that, thanks to that living maid who's always cleaning up after you. It doesn't take long to get used to being treated like a prince. I can tell you that, because I've been there. And that's the way it is with about 30-35% of the Latin families down here. They have a living maid, or even more than one, and the young boys that live in that house never have to lift a finger. And that's why they generally don't leave the house until they get married. Not like up in the first world, where you're kind of a disappointment to everyone, if you're not out of your parents' house by the time you're 21. In fact, guys and girls alike up in the first world by the time they're 18 are itching to

[22:58] get out anyway. But down here in Latin America, there are a lot of guys and girls between the ages of 25 and 35 still living at home, and there's not a bit of a stigma to it. And one of the big reasons guys almost always stay at home until they're married, no matter what age they are, is because as long as they're at home, they're treated like a prince, the maid or cleaning lady waits on them hand and foot, and so do their mothers and grandmothers. And here's the thing, in regards to young women and girls that still live at home, you'll find that the cleaning lady doesn't wait on them hand and foot, not like they do for the boys in the family. And in fact, most young girls don't like a cleaning lady or maid washing or folding or pressing their clothes, or snooping around in their rooms. So that means young girls living at home are usually handling their own housekeeping chores. Nothing like their lazy ass princely brothers who are living under the same roof.

[23:45] And I've heard that same story from dozens of young Latin girls living at home with a brother or two. They all say their brothers are lazy good for nothings who wouldn't lift a finger to save their lives. And when these guys have their friends over, or they have a party, it's like a cyclone hit, and it's the cleaning lady, the grandmother and the mother, who put the place back together again. So when a young man finally gets married, his expectations are exactly the same. He expects the women at home to wait on him hand and foot. And usually that's just the way it happens. And so if you've gone all your life from birth until the age of 25, let's say, believing that you hold an exalted position in your family, that it's a man's world, and that women are a notch or two down from you, it's an easy next step to having affairs or supporting a mistress or two and not feeling too much guilt about it at all.

[24:31] Because basically that's what daddy, uncle Julio and grandpa did, the guys who were your childhood role models. And you firmly believe that having that kind of life is your rite of passage. It's the great Latin American macho tradition, or so you think. So when you look at it that way, that the women are enablers since birth, it's just as easy to see that Latin women could put a halt to it if they had a mind to. But don't hold your breath. And as far as all the expat ladies that I've known down here, who've hooked up with Latin guys and eventually have married them, the vast majority of them have the same sad tale to tell. Of course, first world expats that get married down here almost always have a living cleaning lady, for one thing. Something that expats love, especially expat women, obviously because they're relieved of the burden of housework. But expat women married to Latins have also told me that their husbands do expect to be

[25:21] treated like princes, just like they were treated when they lived back at home with mommy and dad, but they also have a very bad habit of having multiple marital affairs. And when they get caught, and they usually do, they always use the same excuse. It's a Latin guy thing they say. They say, all Latin men cheat. It's part of our society and that's the way it is. However, what most of those Latin guys don't reckon on is that first world women are very intolerant of that kind of thing. And once caught, it usually ends in divorce, and if they're not married, it signifies the end of the relationship completely. And Latin guys aren't used to that. When they're with a Latin woman and they get caught cheating, there's a good chance that after they shed a few crocodile tears, and by the way, Latin guys have that particular skill of being able to turn on the tears at will, unlike us much colder first world guys

[26:09] who only cry at the funerals of very close relatives and when we get kicked in the balls. Anyway, Latin guys when caught cheating can turn on those crocodile tears in an instant, and many times the ploy will work and the girl will fall for it, which is another reason why so many Latin couples stay married or stay together even when the guy gets caught cheating. It's not that Latin women are more gullible, they know how their men are, and a lot of Latin women just bite the bullet and decide to stay with a known evil because the next lover boy that comes along will likely pull the same moves. And that's another reason why first world male expats can have such a wonderful love life down here, and why Latin women just love to hook up with first world guys. Although compared to Latin men, we might be a little on the cold side, and we can't dance

[26:54] worth a damn, we know that. Statistically, us first world guys are much less likely to have affairs, or if we get married down here, we're unlikely to cheat on our Latin wives, and a lot of that is because up in the first world we've been trained well. If we cheat on our wives up there, not only do we feel guilty about it, we usually get taken to the cleaners. And though us first world guys aren't angels by any means, we're not even in the same ball park as these macho Latin guys. And Latin women who hook up with first world men know that, and after being in a relationship with a first world foreigner, they rarely ever go back to a Latin guy again, which is kind of a Latin version of once you go black, you'll never go back. You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, and don't forget

[27:42] you can email me on anything at all about Latin America. The Expat Files at gmail.com. That's theexpatfiles at gmail.com. See you next time, nos vemos.