#928 – The Expat Files: Life in Latin America, Cockroaches, and Currency Confusion

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 I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat 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 Here's an email that should be of interest to everyone who's thinking about or in the process of having a plan B And even if you're stuck in the US forever after this email might hit a nerve with you, too Especially if you're living in the southern warmer states or in a trailer park public housing or the ghetto

[00:49] This email comes from our good friend. Mr B our resident expert in teaching English to Chinese kids on the internet for 20 bucks an hour or so You've heard me talk about him before he always hangs with us that my expat insider seminars and is a welcome addition because not Everyone with a plan B comes down with a big nest egg or a pension some expats and gringos Especially the very young ones come down with a bankroll They know won't last them that long and they know eventually they have to find some way to make some money And that's where mr. B comes in he gives you a power boost and a leg up on how to make 20 bucks or so an hour From anywhere as long as you've got a computer in a decent internet connection Mr. B's been living in Guatemala for a couple of years now and he and his family are doing all right in fact more than

[01:34] All right, and just recently he moved from Guatemala City to another town in Guatemala Called Porto Badia's a big port town. That's on the Atlantic coast I'd say it's about a four or five hour drive from Guatemala City No, depending on traffic road conditions and weather it could take four hours. It could take ten And here's what he says Johnny. My wife would like your cockroach recipe We are now living in Porto Badia's and there are tons of cockroaches here We'll write soon about our driving and relocation experience from Guatemala to this town When I finally get my whole family moved and settled in thanks a lot mr. B All right for you new listeners who might be curious He's not talking about a recipe where you cook up cockroaches as a main dish or appetizer

[02:24] And to me just the idea of eating insects of any kind is a revolt and proposition I mean look imagine you're out on that date and the person you're with orders up a bowl of fried grubs Yeah, that sets the mood for romance, huh? Don't laugh I have a friend who lived in Thailand for a while and that's exactly what happened to him Yeah, I realize insects are loaded with protein and all that some cultures go for it But Kooka Rochester's to me they're one of the lowest most horrible life forms In fact creatures like cockroaches mosquitoes and flies could make you doubt the existence of God You know or perhaps God's a trickster has a crazy sense of humor and likes to screw with people I mean really if you're immortal and you live forever eventually you're gonna get bored But then you got those humans you can screw with they're always unpredictable and good for a laugh

[03:12] I've got a pretty low boredom threshold myself Anyway, as for me, I just hate Kookaracha's flies and mosquitoes I mean really I can't think of any more useless or despicable life forms except politicians and bureaucrats Sure, Kookaracha's are everywhere here in Latin America all different kinds and sizes and they've got a few different names, too Not just Kookaracha. Some people call them Kookas, which is also a pretty gross slang word for vagina So then how'd that come about? Don't ask by the way There are lots of Latinos slang words for vagina for that matter There are tons of slang words for penis too and one particular slang word for vagina kind of throws me It's mela coton mela coton Which in English is peach, you know, like Georgia peach

[03:58] How'd that happen? Then there's el conyo another street word for vagina and then there's la cancha which by the way in English is conch or seashell Now I'm laying these slang words for vagina on you right now So that when you finally get into conversational Spanish on the street and you hear some of these words and you will You'll finally understand what some of these Latinos are talking about whether you should feel insulted grossed out or maybe even enter the conversation or exit stage left Remember just like in English in Spanish store lots of words that have double meanings and the second meeting can be in some situations It's kind of rude or gross which brings us to coconuts, you know, they don't all grow on palm trees I'll give you one guess what the word cocos mean on the street besides coconut or

[04:47] Global which in English means balloon depending on the context You'll know exactly what the person's talking about and of course our little double meaning exercise here would not be complete without a few words For penis, for example el pajaro or el pajarito Meaning bird or little bird in some Latino countries. They use the word anaconda Which needs no explanation and some use the slang el torto, which means one-eyed now in some Latin countries You have la camote which means sweet potato and some on the street say pitot which means whistle Some of the cruder people might say like who said nito Which means little worm and there's one that's used in many Latin countries Chorizo, which means sausage and of course most of those aforementioned words would be considered boys locker room talk

[05:38] So if you learn of yourself or you're stuck in a conversation with people who are using them You wouldn't want to use them in front of your parents or your sister your grandma your teacher or your priest Did I say priest scratch that so there you have a few the more popular ones But the list of street talk words describing private parts goes on and on and you know Normally the words I've mentioned aren't universal for every Latin country. For example in Central America the word wave own means lazy slow or stupid and it means the same in Colombia and That word wave own is derived from the word wave. Oh meaning egg in English. So how'd that happen? Who knows? And of course, you've all heard Latino street slang coming from Hollywood movies with Latino themes

[06:23] For example, and a ho which means idiot but south of south the border that is south of Mexico They just don't use that word. For example in Guatemala They've got some street words that are insults ones serote Which means idiot or numb nuts or pizarro, which means stupid or shoot a which means nosy Then there's Shuko, which means filthy dirty or smelly Probably none of those words you'll find in a formal Spanish dictionary And of course, there's street slang that strictly Mexican cabron meaning a bad person or a person you can't trust But it's also considered a greeting for lower-class people who might be friends kind of like the n-word It could be an insult or a term of endearment Depending on the context in the tone Then you've got Binche which means deplorable or despicable or just a common filler word like damn

[07:14] You know like damn car damn Yankees damn homework, then you've got the word mula. No, it's not money It means idiot stupid or stubborn in practically any Spanish country Mula means mule as in the animal which also means drug runner though in Spanish. It's pronounced mula And of course the more you interact with average Latinos on the street You'll soon start picking up on the local slang and even if you only know 50 words of Spanish All you got to do is look out for people that are repeating the same word a lot like for example The words cabron and vato Hollywood narco movies are peppered with those words But as mentioned if you're south of south of the border You won't hear cabron or vato thrown around much at all if you do that person's Mexican In fact, that's one way Latinos spot another Latino from another country in Latin America

[08:04] Much of the slang is regional that's different from the u.s. Where street slang Eventually blankets the country of course it has to start somewhere and then it filters through to the rest of the states It usually takes a couple of months. Unfortunately many slang words become Aggravatingly monotonous, especially in the states like the a word. Oh man, that's so a you know what I'm talking about I'll never say it. I hate hearing it. Oh and for you new listeners that a word I'm talking about does not have whole after it, but I digress. Where were we? Oh, yeah talking about that killer kookaracha recipe and I mean kill as in dead now I seriously hate cockroaches, but the thing is here in Latin America They seem to live in everyone's kitchen and bathroom and Latinos are so used to living side by side with them

[08:50] They just accept them as a fact of life and don't even put in the effort to whack them But not me. I'm the cockroach grim reaper now you longtime listeners heard me say this before I've had months even years go by and the places I've lived and I don't see a single cockroach And I don't use pesticides or toxins because you see about every six months I make up a little batch of what I call cuckoo balls Which by the way have nothing to do with vaginas and I'll tell you the method works like a charm But you have to follow a few hygienic steps around the house to keep them from coming back Number one never leave dirty dishes in the sink Especially overnight because you'll never get rid of them number two always clean out or at least wipe down your microwave oven after ever use

[09:36] I'm talking about the inside of it now Because microwave ovens believe it or not are happy homes to millions of kookarachas here in Latin America Don't ask me how or why they seem to survive, but man they do and they multiply in there That is if you don't wipe the thing down Something else you should do is when you open up any kind of package of food whether it's cereal rice beans sugar Garbanzos gummy bears whatever always seal the top with a couple of rubber bands and put it in a ziplock bag Then throw a rubber band or two around the ziplock too So then everything edible that you've opened is sealed twice or double bag Man, I can't tell you how many cupboards I've opened in Latino homes to pull out a coffee cup a plate or even because I was born nosy

[10:23] When I do I almost always see badly sealed or open bags and containers of food and one thing Latino families are notorious for Leaving food out on the stove overnight They'll have soup and chicken and meat dishes cooking away on the stove for dinner and leave the leftovers on the stove overnight Man, that's a midnight snack for a thousand kookas So anyway, if you follow those easy steps and make it a habit only takes two minutes a day And you make up some of my famous kooka balls Which are very cheap and dirty and we have to do that about every six months You just may never see a kooka ratchet again except that election time Alright, so here's the recipe you get some borax You know in the old days there was this cleaning powder and detergent called 20 mule team borax is pure borax a white powder

[11:11] No, the kooka ratchets don't snort it when they eat it it damages their guts and dehydrates them So they die of starvation, but they just won't outright eat that powder because it's not interesting enough It's not a food you have to mix it with something sweet and edible So you buy some of this borax powder by the way welders use it so you can buy it at welders supply outfits, too Though it's sold on the internet to you know the usual suspects Amazon for five or ten bucks you can get a pound of the stuff that'll last a lifetime So here's the plan you take a cereal bowl you put in about a half a shot of borax powder and about a half a shot Of regular old flour like gold-metal flour you throw in a big pinch of brown sugar Not a lot just a big pinch when you do this use rubber gloves

[11:57] Not that it's to protect you from any kind of damage because it won't hurt you remember It's been used for hundreds of years as a laundry detergent You just put on the gloves because the next step gets pretty messy and it'll stick to your fingers So you've got your rubber gloves on start adding a couple of drops of water You start kneading it like dough till it becomes the consistency of play dough so in about two minutes You're gonna have something that's about the size of an eyeball Then you take that eyeball sized slab of dough and you break it into about 15 or 20 equal parts And you roll each of those little pieces into a ball, too So now you'll have about 15 or 20 little balls slightly smaller than the size of an eraser head Now you take those little balls and you start putting them around the house mostly in the kitchen and the bathrooms

[12:43] In the kitchen you put them inside cabinets in the corners and on the edge where the walls of the cabinets meet the floor Because you see kookarachas have a predictable pattern of movement. They have their favorite runways You see they follow the corners and edges of walls and cabinets Now you space those balls between three and five feet from each other You put them in your cabinets behind the microwave refrigerator and big appliances Also put them in the corners of your bathroom cabinets and behind the toilet and the sink, too Those balls are pretty small, but you don't want to make them so obvious that when people walk in they say hey How's that ball doing in the corner? With a little planning you can hide them around the kitchen in the bathroom without anybody really seeing them Like for example, you don't have to put them in the corner where the microwave fits an open area

[13:29] Everyone can see stick it in the groove where the wall meets the countertop behind your microwave That's an area that's totally hidden too and kookaraches love dark spaces That's why I recommend you put them in the corners and edges in your cabinet Now you have to be patient because it takes about a month to eliminate all the kookaraches using this technique Oh, and here's a tip if you have a real problem and infestation and you're just getting started with the balls At night put one of those balls on the edge of your sink drain in your bathroom and your kitchen Your shower and bathtub drain too because you know, they like to hang out in drains And what are they gonna see when they first climb out? And you will notice after a week or so the balls get kind of hard. Well, that's okay Just like play-doh does my suggestion just take a little spray bottle

[14:16] With regular water in it Just shoot a little spritz on your kookaballs And that kind of refreshes them or at least makes them more appealing to kookaraches again Because they're always looking for food and water But eventually they will get hard as a rock But really after the first month and you see their numbers have been drastically reduced You really only have to collect the old ones and toss them and put in new ones every six months or so However, you might want to mix up an extra batch if you have a party or you invite politicians over And really you're only going to have a recurrence if you regress to your old bad habits Oh and one more thing when I say don't leave food out on the countertops and stuff I'm talking about cooked food you can leave raw fruits and vegetables out on the counter As long as it's whole and not a cut piece of fruit because you see kookaraches like sugar sweets cooked and processed things

[15:04] Which brings us to a few final thoughts in our never-ending war against kookaraches keep an eye on your garbage cans Make sure they've got covers and they're sealed My advice and of course, you don't have to follow any of my advice Is to never leave an open garbage can or bag overnight Always put it outside or at least seal it up at night Now the question always is if you've eliminated kookaraches and suddenly you see one or two after a couple of months How'd the new ones find their way back in? Could be a lot of ways Maybe you brought something in from a garage sale or use bookstore or even some package from the grocery store that had one hiding inside And remember they come up through drains too And of course if you live in an apartment building or high-rise tower and your neighbor has kookaraches

[15:50] Which he probably does because this is Latin America One or two or more are bound to find their way into your place Whether it through crawl spaces or doors without weather stripping because you know in Latin America 99.9 percent of people do not have weather stripping around their windows or outside doors And of course, there's never weather stripping on inside doors. Why would there be? Oh and one last tip if you spill something that's got sugar in it or is edible Wipe it up right away and then hit it with a little splash of windex Then wipe that down because you see kookaraches do not like to eat things that are mixed with ammonia Which is a big component in window cleaners? All right Let's slam this virtual chicken buss into reverse and discuss something people are always talking about I get questions all the time about the four latino countries that don't have their own currency their own funny money

[16:40] They use us funny money instead. That'd be Ecuador Panama police and El Salvador Though panama and police coined their own change they use us change that is coins, too Now the story of how these countries transitioned into the us dollar is pretty much the same They crash their own currency and economies through management stupidity and corruption by their government officials. Who else? For example, here's an article that explains exactly what happened in Ecuador. You know, Ecuador exactly 20 years ago Abandoned its national currency the sukir in favor of the us buck So let me paraphrase some of this article because it's pretty complete It says the change to the us dollar resulted from an economic crisis that saw the collapse of dozens of banks High unemployment and an inflation rate approaching 100 annually by the way right now

[17:30] Argentina has been running inflation rates of over 50 percent for the last couple years They're bankrupt and their bonds are in default. So soon enough. We're gonna see what's gonna happen there But back to ecuador the former president at the time when they made the switch over his name is jamil Muad said in an interview a couple weeks ago We had no choice but to make the transition. We were in the middle of an economic disaster Yeah, right of his making of course He says it was getting worse and worse and changes had to be made He says I have no regrets about doing it So when the currency conversion rate was made on january 9th, 2000 the ecuadorian sukir traded at 25 000 to the dollar up from 11 000 to the dollar a year earlier He says the economy of ecuador was in the shambles and the dollar was practically the only logical refuge

[18:19] And he says within months of the change credibility and confidence returned to the economy and confidence in the currency Us currency that is remains strong today Now in the weeks prior to the switch the central bank of ecuador devalued the sukir five times in efforts to reduce the government deficit And four days before the dollarization started the government closed the country's surviving banks and froze the value of the sukir And here's how corrupt these latin government jerks are according to economists Later in the game after analyzing all this they found widespread fraud preceded the change Wouldn't you know it many in the government and banking business knew about it in advance and prepared for it And made big money in the international currency exchange markets

[19:07] Says Juan Romero as a professor at san francisco university in keto. Ecuador He says between the bank and collapse and the dollarization many ecuadorians lost their life savings So then how do you change over to the us dollar when 99 percent of your population doesn't even speak english? Well, it says in this article Following the adoption of the us dollar the ecuadorian government launched a know your dollar campaign in newspapers And radio and tv it was very confusing for people especially with those who had little education Romero said in the markets You saw many small vendors pricing all their goods at one dollar Even goods that were worth more or even a fraction of that because they didn't understand the coinage This is one reason why it took two years before inflation dropped to that of us level

[19:56] Oh and get this which is typical for blundering chaotic latin governments It says also confusing was the process for exchanging sucrose for dollars It was more than a month after the official announcement before the national congress passed a law for what they call economic transformation That provided the details of the transition Then typical of idiot bureaucracies over the coming months the date for full currency conversion was changed three different times So then after 20 years of dollarization ecuador, what's the political and economic fallout? Well, you know what ecuadorian politicians are saying these days about it And it's typical because they're all a bunch of slimy pustulent scumbags They'll tell you it's put ecuador in an economic straight jacket

[20:42] And that's what politicians and lardess bureaucrats in panama police and el soledor are saying too In other words, they're no longer able to turbo charge the printing presses and their central bank reserves, which are also denominated in dollars Can't be easily drained and siphoned off by the lardess slugs in charge And can't easily be turned into a millionaire retirement package for corrupt politicians friends and family But you know in reality when countries dollarize It's only a temporary fix because the u.s Dollar itself is funny money with no backing except by the full force and power of the american Military machine and of course you long-time listeners have heard me say this before That I just can't get over the fact that the other 16 latin american countries that do have their own funny money

[21:29] They always look at the u.s. Dollar as if it was solid gold They all believe it's backed by gold in fort nox or somewhere Even the brightest of latinos with more degrees than the thermometer They talk about the inflation problems of their own funny money currencies Not realizing at all that the united states dollar has lost more than 95 percent of its value Since the federal reserve act of 1913 putting that fraudulent scheming concoction into the existence really What can you say about a currency that's lost? 95 percent of its value in the past hundred years Well, if you were to read about that happening in greece or portugal or turkey you'd say yeah That's par for the course the guy's in charge of government. There are thieves and corrupt extortionists serves them right

[22:14] I'd never want to live there You'd be thinking for sure those in charge are beyond a bunch of losers But when you plug in the words united states instead of greece or portugal suddenly you get that glazed overlook You've lost your audience and they're back on their phone looking at instagram posts again The truth is people almost like hearing about other countries whose economies are crashing and burning But mention that the us is completely bankrupt 20 trillion in debt that there's really no fix and the end of the us dollar is near People just don't want to hear about it. And when someone brings it up on a panel show the government talking heads laugh and say Hey, we're talking about the usa. There's nothing to worry about Meanwhile in every single latin american country people think the dollar is rock solid and backed by gold

[23:01] Even though what really backs it is the military think about it when you're able to bomb every single country out of existence And they know it they play by your rules They have to but where were we? Oh, yeah talking about how latin american Dollarized countries came about in the typical pattern of what happens there when they switch over We're talking about the case of ecuador which did the switch over just 20 years ago now Contrary to what you get from standard blogs and wikipedia articles about dollarization in latin america And remember we're just talking about four out of 20 countries now The fact is and most people don't know this there were actually two dollarizations in ecuador The first came months ahead of the official one the oligarchy and politicians and bureaucrats with privileged

[23:46] Information were told about the coming change and were able to exchange their sukers at seven thousand to the dollar Then that dried up the supply of dollars right away such that when the president mahu had finally announced the change The exchange rate went up to 25 000 sukers to the dollar All the connected politicians and bureaucrats and family and friends got to exchange their sukers for over four times With the common man and the guy on the street got to change theirs for what a bunch of sociopathic malignant a-holes, huh? Oh, and did you know that the president mahu would then fled to the us weeks later? Escaping charges of corruption and receiving money from drug cartels And in return for his services to the washington bureaucracy

[24:34] He was granted political asylum in the states and get this was paid a consultant fee For various us aid funded think tanks Remember he's the guy who ruined the ecuadorian economy pushing inflation from 60 to 100 percent Which pushed many ecuadorians into the venezuelan mode with hundreds of thousands leaving the country looking for work So naturally it should come as no surprise to anybody that the x president was given a position as a lecturer at harvard university with his entire economic team ultimately fleeing into exile To escape the charges of massive embezzlement money laundering and links with columbian drug cartels So they all wanted to excel except one guy The so-called super minister of economy guillermo

[25:23] Lasso they created a brand new title because he only has a high school diploma And therefore not legally qualified to be an actual minister much less no more than a plumber or motorcycle mechanic or McDonald's cashier about finances and the economy You gotta wonder how does that happen a guy with only a high school diploma was head of the economy in ecuador meanwhile He managed to make a hefty 30 million dollar profit on the meltdown because of his insider information And those profits immediately got shipped off to those panama banks So what'd he do with all that dough? Well, wouldn't you know it he bought a huge spread in my jammy and invested 23 million dollars in the south florida

[26:09] investment real estate property Not bad for a high school grad who helped bring his whole country's economic system down Don't you love it how all these discredited and deposed ex bureaucrats and politicians end up living in my jammy But you knew that already, right? My question to you is how close do you live to the promised land my jammy disneyland that is Second question, how's that plan b coming speaking of plan b's remember my website for now and ever after is expatplanb.com That's where you'll be able to get the late breaking news on my july 2020 expat insider seminar I haven't really finalized the dates yet, but it will be in the first or second week of july 2020

[26:54] Oh and remember my latest greatest improved edition of the latin american healthcare report over 100 pages long Can also be found at expat plan b.com if you're anywhere along on your plan b at all You know that when you eventually make it down to latin america whether permanent or part-time You're probably going to need health insurance and even if you go naked meaning no insurance at all Because the prices are so damn cheap down here anywhere from a fourth To a tenth of what you pay up in the states still you'll need the dope on what to expect and how to find First world doctors clinics and hospitals. It's all right there in my latin american healthcare report You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult

[27:41] Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com