An Unlikely Expat in El Salvador

This is the story of how contributing writer Louis Varca became an expat in El Salvador.  Please read, please comment. 

by Louis Varca
I met my other half on a warm summer day at an Amusement Park, the least likely of places. I had no real attraction to Latin American individuals prior. I was not exactly racist either, neutral. I have to admit, I do like new cultures though. We met, went out on a few dates, you know the story. We fell for each other. Our friends never though it would last since we were young (23-24) and to everyones surprise it did.

We were not married at the time. We simply were not ready. Unfortunately my significant others visa expired. She neglected to tell me, I can't blame her. It probably would of cost us the relationship. Long Distance Relationships tear families apart, they don't work well. We went out as if nothing had happened.

Ecuador Is Not Venezuela

Ecuador’s political orientation is often lumped together with Venezuela as a socialist dictatorship that is anti-private business and anti-American.  For some reason, the media sees fit to bundle Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa as though they were identical in their political viewpoints and in their strategy to “unseat the empire” so to speak.

I’ve often pointed out, as I did in this article, that Rafael Correa is not Hugo Chavez, Ecuador is not the same as Venezuela, and indeed, Ecuadorians have one of the most pro-Everybody attitudes in all of South America.

Most of the media criticisms toward Ecuador come from Correa’s seemingly adversarial position toward large mining and oil companies targeting the bounty contained in Ecuador’s relatively small portion of the Amazon Rainforest.

Living in Mexico - Los Ayala’s Town Plaza

Town plazas are very important to the Mexican culture and families, as they serve as a gathering place for all the community to enjoy. Traditional Mexican towns embrace town plazas, otherwise known as zocalos; a place where children play; locals gather to chat and relax; and the site of lively fiestas, civic and cultural events. Until most recently one square block of earth and sand served as the town plaza for Los Ayala.

There is a government program called the “3 for 1 Program” which is available to help small towns in Mexico, such as Los Ayala make improvements. The program was started by a group of Mexican immigrants living in California who formed a formal society to raise money to help small communities in Mexico.

Is The Grass Greener if You Emigrate to Australia?

Moving to Australia was not my idea. It was my Aussie wife's idea, and it was all a bit of a scam.

Her plan was to get me drunk on lurve, seduce me with a hot country, laid back BBQs, cold beer and warm seas and then marry me.

And I fell for it!!

Let's rewind a bit. It’s 2001: I was working for a busy local newspaper publisher - driving to work in freezing fog to a grey office block near a flooding river. Every day.

It was ‘a proper job’ in the West Midlands (that’s in England!). I was 26 and I must admit to feeling that a little bit of an adventure, (of absolutely ANY sort), would be welcome.

I'd met a girl, enjoyed a whirlwind romance, (4 weeks, no less!), before she set off back to far far far sunnier climes, to her hometown of Adelaide, Southern Earth. I drove her to the airport, kissed her goodbye and drove home in the freezing fog to my grey house near a flooded river. I didn’t want that to be the end of my life’s adventure!

Cuba -The Next Expat Property Hotspot?

There are countless articles floating around about Cuba's potential to become the next property hotspot - some imply that lifting travel restrictions on American tourists will kick start a rise in property prices as they'll fall for Havana's faded charms, or the beautiful Caribbean beaches, and want a piece for themselves - so what's the reality?...

Two hurdles stand in the way of a real estate boom in Cuba (three if you include the need for a stable, democratically elected government). Allowing American tourists in won't make a difference to the country's property market.

Help For Travelers With Food Allergies

There’s been a lot of attention paid to food allergies in the last couple years. But what happens to folks with food allergies when they travel overseas?

At least 12 million Americans suffer from food allergies And 90% of all food allergy reactions are caused by 8 foods: milk, soy, eggs, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. Country music star Trace Adkins championed this cause when he appeared on the Celebrity Apprentice last year and raised awareness for the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), an organization dedicated to educating and advocating for Americans living (and of course traveling) with food allergies.

So what happens to this education once a person with a food allergy leaves the country? Americans are spoiled by the mandated labeling that appears on packaged foods and even restaurant menus. But in a foreign country, this helpful information might not appear or you may not be able to translate it. The downside could be significant.

10 Painstaking Steps To Achieving Customer Service In Panama

For those of you who know Panama, the idea of achieving customer service may sound like the equivalent of “How To Squeeze Water From A Rock”.  In other words, the proposition is impossible, or just plain silly.  Yet, with the right strategy, you can achieve the service you need, you just have to learn the rules of the game.

For those of you who don’t know Panama, one of the things you’ll discover quickly is horrible customer service – something you will have to learn to adapt to or go crazy. At first you may think you just ran into a ‘bad apple’, but bad service is a reality not confined to just one business – it’s 95% of them.

In general, and contrary to what most of us are used to, it’s the customer himself who has to track down whatever follow up service he or she desires.  In this way, service actually does get provided but only to those customers who are persistent (or loud) enough. This is not an isolated case but the norm.

It’s All About Relationships

In Panama, personal relationships have a huge influence on who gets served first.  The idea that any two demands for service be treated equally is not applicable.  And the idea of ‘first come, first serve’ only applies during the moments you are physically standing there in front of the service provider pleading for service.  As soon as you leave, it’s entirely possible that your case will go back to the bottom of the pile.

Certain clients are ‘favored’ because of an existing personal relationship the client may have with a service provider.  So what do you do if you are ‘new in town’ and you don’t have the luxury of existing relationships to rely on to get things done?

How To Get Things Done

Getting things done in Panama can be frustrating or comical, depending on your perspective – but it will certainly not be fast or easy.

In Panama, most of the work you see getting done is by offering an immediate payment as a reward for completing a task. Example: Do activity X and I will pay you Y dollars. This system of immediate reward is in many ways the easiest to manage and accounts for 75% of how and why anything ever gets done in Panama.

But what if you are dealing with a banker, a developer’s agent, a property manager, or some other person with whom you cannot or will not offer an immediate payment for realizing a service? Let’s say you simply want them to do their job, for which they are probably receiving a meager fixed salary and have no direct incentive to help you. This is a much more difficult process in Panama and often requires what I call “polite persistence”.

Polite persistance is a remarkably simple, yet time consuming concept.

Here’s how the system works in ten painstaking steps:

First, you have to ask for the task or service you want to have done – it will almost never be offered to you out of free will. Don’t ever assume that someone will “do their job” without being asked to do it.

Second, be sure to request a time frame for when the person anticipates he or she should be able to complete the task. Your contact will almost always agree to do what you want, the only question is when – today, next year, or ten years from now? Always request a “when”. If “when” is tomorrow, ask if morning or afternoon. Don’t try to get any more specific than that. For example, “of course I should have your mortgage approval ready by this Friday”. “Great”, you reply, “morning or afternoon?” “Morning”. “Perfect, I’ll call you Friday morning” Note: Friday is almost always a delay tactic for next week, rarely does anything get completed on a Friday.

Third, when (not if) the task was not completed as scheduled, call or better yet ask to meet the person on that day and repeat steps one and two. It is important to not berate the person you want to help you. Being polite at this early stage is more valuable than getting angry. You goal is to build a relationship.  While anger might work, you also risk getting “closed off” – a Panamanian tactic for keeping annoying people like you out of their life. Once you are “closed off”, it will create further delays and not work to your benefit.

Fourth, repeat your request and keep asking for a new anticipated deadline. Follow up on the specified deadline.  If you fail to follow up, you risk further delays.

Fifth, as annoyed as you are by now, don’t give up yet. If you ever give up or let go, this can be interpreted by the person that they have successfully avoided having to do what you want.

Sixth, I know you are fed up, and I know you want to book your next plane ticket out of Panama by now, but now is not the time to quit. Don’t be pesky, let some time pass, and keep asking!

Seventh, the closer you get to the point of complete exasperation and surrender, the closer you are to getting your task done. Don’t be afraid to surrender on the inside, it will add years to your life and probably increase the likelihood that your task will get done.  If your task has not been completed after several follow up attempts, proceed to step 8.

Eighth, once you are beyond exasperation and still have not achieved a result, it’s time to change tactics and ask to speak to the person further up the chain of command. If you try to go too high up the chain of command too early, your “story” won’t sound convincing and you risk alienating the person who you were originally dealing with (who may still end up being the person you need to help you). Managers in Panama are often much lazier than the ground workers and are even more likely to favor clients they already know.  But if you have tried for “weeks” or “months” to get said task completed, you have a valid story to pursue the person of higher rank.

Ninth, repeat the process with your new contact, starting from step one.

Tenth, celebrate the completion of your task and laugh at yourself for being so uptight about it. Did it really matter that the task was completed days, weeks, or months late?

P.S. if you can’t find a way to enjoy life during those days and weeks of waiting, and pestering, you are not cut out for Panama, go home.

My experience has been that with polite persistence, you can get answers to your questions or get your contact in Panama to do something for you that does not involve immediate payment.  The good news is, once you have built a relationship with the person, it will be easier next time.

Michael Manville

Michael is the author of the Panama 101 – E-Book Guide To Living and Investing in Panama, 2010 Edition – one of several free downloads available to Members of Retire Worldwide. Join Here.

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How Do You Know When It's Time to Move Back?

by Abby Tegnelia

Ever since I conned my parents into letting me jet off to Europe on a senior trip with a high school group I didn’t know (I was 12), I’ve been a bona fide traveler. But after many, many trips, studying abroad, backpacking, the whole thing, I slowly began to develop a brand-spanking new obsession: moving. It was no longer enough to see a place for a few weeks or even months; I wanted to live there. I jaunted from NYC to Austin to Las Vegas to LA, and then I knew it was time to branch out from the US. In August, I landed in Costa Rica, on an extended “vacation.” Eight months later, I love being an expat.

But I’ve just started to wonder: “How will I know when it’s time to go home?"
I am now settled into my Costa Rican pueblo, Coco, where I live in a tight-knit little barrio. I have no intention of moving anytime soon. Yet, I’ve recently started debating whether or not I should begin to think about moving “back.”

A few weeks ago, I started getting ready to fly back to NYC to be a bridesmaid for one of my dearest friends. Since I couldn’t attend her bridal shower in person, my best friend sent me the traditional “How well do you know the bride?” questionnaire that they’d be using at the party. Long story short, I didn’t know a single answer. Had I really been gone that long? I’d still been living in NYC when they met and was around quite a lot during their first year together; I’d even grilled him on his intentions like a father from the 50s. Yet, I know nothing about her life now.

It was a small catalyst that soon had my mind racing. Had it been too much of a sacrifice to travel the world in search for… what? Had I alienated myself from my friends, just to be left single and off the career track? I knew this was the old me thinking, not the new (emotionally steady, happy, centered) me. But you know what? The old me wasn’t exactly a dumbass.

What would my future be like if I stay in Coco? When is it time to go?

My biggest frustration is the dating scene, a common complaint for women expats. When you’re just passing through town, it’s easy to notice with a tourist’s eye the 70-year-old gringo with a teenaged local girl on the back of his scooter. But when you get to know everybody, and you know whose ex-husband that is on the scooter, it takes on a whole new meaning. Guys my own age tend to have a certain type of local draped on their arm. I’ve accepted all of this, but I’m wary of my feelings on the subject. I plan on leaving before I grow bitter, if that’s what’s going to happen.

There never really is the perfect time to decide to go. Even though I’m not really ready to leave, do I need to move on?

By the time this is posted, I’ll be in the US for two weddings on the opposite side of the country, two weeks apart. This means 14 days in Manhattan, the city I lived for the longest, where all my friends have stayed, where I love the sharpness of the people and how I can blend in no matter what I do or wear. When I go back, I’ll be nothing short of at peace with the lifestyle I’ve chosen, the experiences I’ve gained. But will I feel the same way if I go back in another five years, still single, in my late 30s, and doing who knows what to make money?

In NYC, I’ll be feeling it out to see if I think I really could make the move back, to using the subway (which I love) and wearing winter clothes (which I detest). I’m open to anything, even something falling from the sky to make me want to stay in Coco, but I do know that I’m listening to the signs and will move back if that’s what events tell me to do. If I stubbornly stay in Costa Rica longer than I need to, I risk the same malaise and unhappiness that kicked off my moving around to begin with. And how counterproductive would that be?
Am I an adrenaline junkie who wants to move around every few years or so and will never be happy settled down? Or if unhappiness rears its ugly head, is it simply because I’m not content settled down here?

Writing this down is the most discussion I’ve had on the matter. I’m actually not over-thinking this one. But knowing that my doubts are there, I’m open to anything, including moving on. Just waiting for the signs….

After more than ten years covering Hollywood for Us Weekly, In Touch, OK and Star magazines, Abby Tegnelia moved last August to Playas del Coco, Costa Rica. There, she runs a celebrity news agency out of her tiny casita, running reporters in LA and NYC for sales all over the world. But she has the most fun on her blog, http://www.thejungleprincess.com/.  This article was originally published on http://twenty-somethingtravel.com/, another great travel site you should definately check out.


This article was also published on Expat Daily News South America

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What sets Costa Rica Apart?

Costa Rica has created a unique and holistic approach to its economic development and the environment, based around a system which pays for use of the environment.

More than 5% of the world’s biodiversity (an incredible one in twenty of every living thing on the planet) lives in Costa Rica and Costa Rica first recognized the value of this natural asset in the 1990’s when it set about forming a plan to protect it.

In most countries the environment ministry is effectively the “poor relation” – sidelined and hidden away. But Costa Rica did what no country had done before - it integrated the environment ministry with the ministry of energy, creating a department which looks after the environment, mining, energy and water. Two ministries that in most countries work to entirely different agendas now worked together.

As a result the ministry took a long term view on the country’s energy strategy. The result was that Costa Rica chose to invest in renewable energy sources. These were not the cheapest option at that time; however the ministry determined that over a longer term 25-50 years they would provide the best value. As a direct result more than 95% of Costa Rica’s energy now comes from renewable sources – hydroelectric, wind and geo-thermal.

Further recognising the true value of its environment Costa Rica was one of the first countries worldwide to impose a tax on fossil fuels. First introduced in 1997, the revenue generated by this 3.5% tax funds the National Forest Fund to pay indigenous communities for protection of the surrounding forests. As a direct result of this fund, deforestation in Costa Rica has been reversed with the land area under forest now more than double that of twenty years ago.

So what sets Costa Rica Apart? – it truly recognizes the value of its environment!

Desperate Expat Housewives

Martina was drinking vodka at 7 am in an airport lounge somewhere in the Philippines when she finally realized she needed help.

She had traveled there with her husband who had to stay for more business meetings, which meant the middle-aged woman had to fly back to China alone.

Persistent loneliness is what pushed Martina over the edge. She had been battling with bouts of alcoholism for a while, but it was not until she left her life behind in New York City to move to Beijing with her husband that the disease would become crippling.

"All of a sudden I am an expat wife and I am not working," said Martina, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

"I had all of this time on my hands, and my husband worked late a lot. I mean a lot."
To many, the lives that expatriate wives lead in Beijing appear to be shrouded in luxury.

Yet a number of the women who follow their husbands overseas secretly suffer from problems ranging from substance abuse to mental illness largely because they are lonely and unable to reclaim the professional lives they left behind back home.

"You do have a lot of expat wives who come here and struggle," said Dr Stephen-Claude Hyatt, a clinical health psychologist at International SOS China.

"They struggle because they don't fit in and don't have a framework in which to work. Enough thought isn't given to what a spouse will do here."

In the beginning, Martina, once an advertising executive in Manhattan, mostly spent her days shopping and visiting tourist sites. Eventually the mystique of a new place faded into boredom.

To pass the time, she sat in her serviced apartment watching DVDs and drinking.
She eventually started taking Chinese lessons, sipping wine spritzers while she studied in the afternoons.

Before the aerobics class she attended every morning, she drank vodka instead of water.

"I would say, 'I will just have a little swig of vodka before I go to class,'" Martina said.

"It was such a crazy life when I think about it now."

Martina has been sober for six years. She found recovery after she began attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings in Beijing.

In the beginning it was far from easy. She was afraid she might see someone in AA who knew her or that word might get out in expat circles that she had an alcohol problem.
"It is very tough at first," she said. "What if I walk into a meeting and someone knows me?"

Aside from AA, there are few resources in Beijing for women facing similar issues, which lead to or are often compounded by marital problems, according to Hyatt.

Source: Mare at China Daily

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Expat Assignments Abroad - Hard Truths About the International Aid Industry

International aid is big business. Over 500,000 people are employed in it, many of them on expat contracts. Aid is a multi-million dollar industry in fact. The country where I live is more or less run by aid, over 50% of the government’s budget comes from donations, grants and loans.

When I was younger and contemplating an expat life I could think of nothing better than to be bumping along rough roads in a developing country, in my slightly scruffy linen clothes, visiting villages, listening wisely to local elders, and handing out food or advice. I fondly imagined sending home photos of me surrounded by beaming poor people, grateful for my help, and knew that I could use my skills to right the wrongs of my country’s colonial past. Naive, foolish and offensive, I know, but that was the image I developed based on the information available to me at the time.

I am a bit more cynical now!

Extended exposure to the aid industry in this country has shown me that it’s not the altruistic thing that I had thought. The main problem with aid is that it is not accountable. Business is required to set targets and report on success or failure to hit those targets. Repeated failure, mis-spending and lack of control are punished by dismissal, or collapse of the company. Lessons are learned from failure. Aid does not work like that. In fact, failure often leads to manipulated reporting to demonstrate success and good money being poured after bad.

Of course not all aid is bad, one only has to look at Haiti to see the amazing work that is being done in response to that disaster, and I have the utmost respect for the doctors and others working in appalling conditions to save lives. But it is quite likely that when disaster relief ends and reconstruction begins, so will the problems. Of course aid also has a role to play in rebuilding infrastructure that poor country governments cannot afford to invest in, but surely it also has a role to play in monitoring the quality and relevance of what is built?

I expect that you give money to charity, most adults in the West do. But what do you know about where that money really goes? What do you know about the, probably huge, sums that your country’s government spends in aid? These are questions we should all ask. After all we are part of the mass of humanity that urges politicians to cancel third world debt and “do something” about poverty. So we have the right to know where the money we want to see spent is going, and why this massive spend is apparently not working.

Here’s a hint. In many developing countries those responsible for administering aid earn salaries many thousands of times those of their local counterparts, they live in plush houses, drive luxurious vehicles and rarely get out into the field to see where your money is being spent. In fact, before your money has even got into the country a large proportion of it may have been spent on supporting the administrative arm of the relevant organisation in your own country. Aid agencies will argue that it is important to provide good conditions in order to hire the best people, and that home country administration and fund-raising is vital. But it’s a question of percentages, many agencies spend more than 20% of what is donated on looking after themselves!

The new concept in bilateral (i.e., country to country) aid is “direct budget support.” This means that large chunks of aid are given over directly to the local government for it to spend as it sees fit. A blind eye is often turned to misappropriation or mismanagement of funds, because the local government is ‘still learning!’

Where aid is directed through projects or programmes it may be invested directly in infrastructure for example, but often the amount allocated and the cost of doing the project well are not the same; so roads are built to lower specification, or not completed, hospitals are built in places where politics demands, not where the need is - and so on. There is a culture of arrogant blamelessness and a lack of introspection in the aid industry. These problems are not reported as failures so it is difficult for us, as the people giving the money, to see what has gone wrong, and by not acknowledging what has gone wrong and learning from it, the aid industry continues to pour our good money after the bad it has already wasted, always with an eye to keeping its people employed, and its budgets renewed or increased.

My cynicism has led me to move into the business sector, there at least I can see exactly what is happening with the money and the benefits we can achieve by creating jobs, training people and investing directly in them. Of course the aid issue is not as black and white as I am making out, but anyone wanting to understand more should get hold of a copy of Dambisa Moyo’s excellent book “Dead Aid” which puts forward the arguments for reforming the way we give. In the mean time, I don’t say you should stop giving, but I do say that you should ask for more information about where your money is going, so you can make an informed decision.

By C. Davies

Note: The opinions are those of the author.

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I'm a Homesick Expat - Get Me Out of Here!

It was perfectly simple, my parents were going to relocate with me and my children from England to South America and if they didn’t like it they were going to return home.  Except it didn’t work out that way. 

My mother took to the new environment like a duck to water but my father hated it from day one and wanted out, like yesterday.  So we had a problem, a big one. We had only considered and discussed the possibility that they would either both like the new location or that they would both decide it was not for them and go back. As stupid as it seems we had not visualized the scenario whereby one would want to stay put and one would want to return.

The following few years were traumatic, fraught with emotion and evoked a tremendous amount of soul searching as my parents tried to come to terms with how the other was feeling and reach a compromise that simply did not exist. Spending part of the year in England and the remainder in South America was not an option largely due to the long flights, connections and bus travel that the 36 hour journey comprised of.  My father returning to England and my mother staying in South America was touched upon only briefly as this represented a separation after 30 years of marriage and was really not on the cards. So my father stuck it out miserably and my mother felt guilty for wanting to stay knowing that her husband was very unhappy and yearning to be back home.  The problem only resolved after 5 years when my mother also reached a point that she felt she wanted to go back to live in England.  Having made the decision they booked the tickets the very next day and said their tearful goodbyes one month later.

If you are a family group or a couple seriously thinking about moving overseas this eventuality is something that you really need to discuss before making the move in order to save months or years of anguish.

I would suggest that you reach some sort of agreement that you feel you can stick to in the event of a similar thing happening to your family.  Maybe you could agree a trial period of at least 6 months or a year that the unhappy partner will be able to commit to.  Agree to reassess at the end of the given time with the option of returning back home if, after the trial period, a strong desire to do so is still there.  I can’t help but feel that if we had put that option in place, my father might have been able to console himself with the thought that his homesick state of mind was only temporary and that there was an end in sight.  This in itself might have been enough for him to adopt the attitude of making the most of the time spent overseas and maybe have lead him to change his mind, or at least leave him with some happier memories. Being in a place with the mindset of feeling trapped is enough to make you want to break free and escape.  A light at the end of the tunnel is encouraging and creates a positive frame of mind in most cases.

When you are moving children overseas you have even more people to consider.  What if one or more of your kids settle in and the others are desperately unhappy?  To what extent will you take their feelings into consideration? What factors will make you decide that you need to pack up and move back to your country of origin?  All of these questions need to be asked and answered honestly.

Relocating overseas is likely to be much more successful if all members of the family are entering into the move with a positive attitude and a feeling that this is something that is going to improve the quality of life.  If one or more family members have doubts they need to be aired long before flight tickets are booked and the family home is sold. 

Have you and your family faced a similar dilemma? How did you resolve things or are you still unsure what to do? email us at editor@expatdailynews.com

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Virtual Kidnapping: Advice on How to Handle a Widespread Scam

It is the phone call every parent of a child abroad is horrified to receive: “Mom, Dad, please help me!” followed by a concealed voice making monetary demands for the safe return of the kidnapped child.  In years past, this usually meant that the child had indeed been abducted and was being held for ransom.  In recent years, however, many of these calls are placed by “virtual kidnappers” who may be nowhere near the alleged victim.

One of the consequences of the “information age” and social media such as Facebook and My Space is the widespread availability of names, addresses and phone numbers.  The resourceful virtual kidnapper is someone who collects data on prospective victims who have shared details online about upcoming adventures such as a trip down the Amazon, a hike to Machu Picchu, or an African Safari — all places where cell phone reception is spotty or nonexistent, creating the conditions for scams to go undetected.

The calls to the families of the “virtual victims” convey a sense of urgency — that the victim will be executed within the hour unless funds are transferred to a foreign bank account, for instance.  Since the family has no way to determine the veracity of the kidnapping, payment is made.  Sophisticated virtual kidnappers go to great lengths to “fake out” the families of their victims by pretending to be the victims themselves — speaking in short, frantic sentences that are muffled by “poor cell phone reception.”


Because cell phone coverage has grown ever wider– even the remote jungles of sub-Saharan Africa are often reachable today — many virtual kidnappers do not limit their victims to those whose cell phone reception is marginal.  Instead, perpetrators contact prospective victims and tell them that their phones should be turned off for an hour or two for servicing.  The virtual kidnappers take advantage of the window to make their calls back home.


The problem has become so severe in Mexico that the country’s government has set up a hot line for victims of virtual extortion.  The U.S. State Department, in its section on travel precautions for Central and South American countries such as Mexico, Venezuela and Peru www.travel.state.gov/ suggests that families of victims should:


 1) not reveal any personal information over the phone,
 2) insist on speaking with the victim to corroborate his/her identity and
 3) contact the nearest US Embassy or consulate.


Although the temptation to respond immediately to demands is very high, most “virtual kidnappers” will abandon their efforts within an hour or two if payment is not received.


Here are a few imperatives to avoid becoming a victim of “virtual kidnapping”:

• Register with the State Department prior to travel
• Verify cell phone reception at all proposed locations on the itinerary
• Do NOT turn off a cell phone at any time- claims that a phone must be disconnected for servicing are universally false
• Do NOT share any information about an upcoming trip on line
• Maintain regular contact with family and loved ones back home 
• Establish a code word to be used to verify any kidnapping claims
• Never travel alone, particularly in Latin America, Africa and the mid East where both real and virtual kidnappings are epidemic 

Source:http://www.healthytravelblog.com/


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Sex Trafficking In Latin America

The trafficking of women and girls for purposes of sexual exploitation has become a $16-billion-a-year business in Latin America, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration

Prostitution is vying for second place with weapons trafficking as the illegal business that moves the most money after drug trafficking. 

Trafficking women or young girls unfortunately has the advantage in that the logistical and investment costs are much lower than in other illicit businesses. The IOM chief for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay said that a procurer "has a net profit of $13,000 per year" on each woman they exploit. In Argentina, "they pay between $32.50 and $1,623 for a , who can then generate $389 per day by being sexually exploited”. 

Check out these horrifying statistics:

12 year old Central American girls are sold for $100-$200 each

50,000 people are trafficked INTO the U.S. annually as slaves. At least one-third of those victims are Latina women and girls. 

Over half of all women in Latin America have suffered some form of violent act. 33% of these women have been victims of sexual exploitation between the ages of 16 and 49.

Children from Ecuador are commonly trafficked into Venezuela to serve as prostitutes. The victims are usually children who are kidnapped, sold by their parents, or deceived by false employment opportunities. These children are first exploited through prostitution at the average age of 12, but as young as 7 years old.

Of the 40,000 sexually exploited children in Venezuela, 78% are girls between the ages of 8 and 17.

Interpol has set the number trafficked out of Colombia each year at 35,000.

As if that is not bad enough, read this firsthand account…

Catalina Suarez was 9 years old when a grandfatherly neighbor lured her with a gift, kidnapped her and kept her chained to a bed in a rural Puerto Rico shack, forcing the child to have brutal sex with a succession of men. 

It was the beginning of 18 years of sexual slavery throughout Latin America and the United States. By her own account, Suarez should have died several times from drugs, disease, beatings and neglect, but the San Francisco resident recently testified before the United Nations about her ordeal.
"I was always under the influence of some kind of drugs, or I was traumatized by the beatings or the pain or the fear," said Suarez, 36. "I was put into trunks of cars with rats and roaches. I screamed and screamed and screamed. No one would help me."

Suarez's testimony comes as officials and watchdog groups are forced to confront a booming international trade in women and children as slaves for prostitution.

So, you are thinking, I am an expat just trying to live a carefree life here…what does this have to do with me? 

Two things. One: If you EVER are tempted to use a prostitute in Latin America, think twice, or three times, and not just for the usual reasons like safety, morality, etc. There is a good chance that she has been trafficked, and that is pretty sick if you have anything to do with supporting that. Two: Once you know about the problem, what are you doing about it? Is there something you can do in your adopted Latin American hometown? Can you volunteer at a local outreach center? Can you use your contacts to raise money to help efforts to save some young girls? (A reporter who just did an article on this was sickened by the fact that the girls he reported on would still be enslaved after the article ran. He bought their freedom for a mere $350). 

To learn more about the issue, or find other ways to help, please check out:
http://www.libertadlatina.org/
http://www.humantrafficking.org/

by Cathy Brown - I would love to hear from you with your views and comments! Email me at cathy@expatdailynews.com.

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What Does the Financial Crisis in Greece Mean for Greek Real Estate?

The financial crisis in Greece is of course hugely disheartening for Greek nationals and those with relatives who live and work in the country. It also has ramifications for property sales in Greece and the real estate market as a whole. 

The Greek financial crisis is sure to be on the minds of those who want to sell property in Greece as well as those who plan to buy Greek property. They will no doubt wonder if this far-reaching economic turmoil will also reach out and affect the real estate market. Doubtless it will in some ways, but a property crash is not on the cards. It is helpful to remember that Greece is only one of the many countries in the EU to be facing a large budget deficit as a result of spending to try to deal with this uncertain economic period. But other countries that have been affected, such as Spain, have seen light at the end of the tunnel and a property market that has already begun to bounce back. 

Greek property prices have only fallen by 5%, according to the Knight Frank Global House Price Index, one of the most respected indices in the industry. A fall of this size is not enough to indicate a market crash is imminent, but is enough to attract property bargain hunters – not a bad thing for property in Greece at this time. Vendors looking to sell Greek property will have a target market of property bargain hunters and will not have had to drop their prices significantly, while those wanting to buy a house in Greece will be able to snap up their dream Greek holiday home for less. 

This crisis is of course good for no one, but the real estate market in Greece looks strong enough to withstand it. It seems that there will continue to be a demand for Greek properties for the foreseeable future.


 Find out more at http://www.housesalesgreece.com/. 

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Uruguay Tax Proposal is Rocking the Offshore Banking Boat

By David Hammond

Uruguay made headlines all over the world this last week, with news of a proposed tax bill that could result in a weakening of Uruguay’s banking privacy and tax the offshore assets of Uruguayan citizens and foreign residents.

President José Alberto Mujica, who took office on March 1st has been assuring international investors that his administration will maintain the investment friendly policies of his predecessor. It was reported that no big tax changes were on the horizon and that members of his administration planned to encourage retirees from Europe and North America to choose Uruguay as a place to live.

So, if economic growth and attracting foreigners to retirees is the goal, why this piece of tax legislation?

According to a May 27 UPI article, the proposed bill “is intended to bring Uruguay into line with ambitious transparency targets set by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development…”

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a convention that was originally signed by 20 countries in 1960. Eleven more countries have been added making a new total of 31. The stated mission of the OECD includes assisting economic development and raising living standards in a globalizing economy.

The OECD has also created an international tax standard that was supported by the G-20 Finance Ministers in 2004, and endorsed by the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters in 2008.

In April 2009 the OECD set out to name, shame, and sanction countries that didn’t share tax related information when requested, which resulted in Uruguay being put on a short blacklist of non-cooperating tax havens. The next day Uruguay’s finance minister informed the OECD that Uruguay formally endorsed OECD’s standards on transparency and information exchange, and would use the standard when drafting new international treaties.

The term “tax haven” can have many meanings. Uruguay is not a tax haven because it is a low tax or no tax country. All Uruguayan banks have strict anti-money laundering practices in place and all private banks that accept US citizens as customers, report depositors’ information to the US Internal Revenue Service. I believe Uruguay got its “tax-haven” status primarily because it’s banking secrecy laws have been in conflict with the OECD’s information sharing requirements.

Since April 2009, Uruguay has signed treaties to avoid double taxation with Germany, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, France, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Malta, Belgium, Korea, and Finland, all of which include the OECD standard for information exchange. According to Eliana Sartori, director in charge of international tax in Uruguay at PricewaterhouseCoopers (in an interview published in the British Society's newsletter June 1st), “Don’t forget that the Government has announced potential treaties with 15 other countries, including Malaysia, India, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Chile and Ecuador”.

The MercoPress reported that at a September 2009 G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, OECD Secretary General, Angel Gurria stated that, “Signing agreements is only one step in a process. What we will now be looking for is effective implementation by all countries”

This brings us to the current tax proposal which, as written, would alter Uruguay’s banking secrecy laws and tax the offshore assets of all Uruguayan residents, both of which are reported to be for the purposes of complying with OEDC standards. The proposal maintains some of Uruguay’s banking privacy, but allows for the OECD mandated information exchange, providing that the requests for Uruguayan banking information be reviewed by a Uruguayan judge before a disclosure is made.

The draft also proposes that a new tax will apply to Uruguayan residents with assets in countries which have a signed treaty with Uruguay, taxing interest earned on financial accounts and dividends and capital gains in shares of company stock. The proposal also contains a wealth tax of 0.7 to 2% on all assets over approximately, 100,000 US dollars.

So what are the pluses and minuses of this proposal?

On the plus side, OECD membership in many ways is seen as desirable. Being in the club of 31 of the most industrialized nations has its benefits. Chile just became a member of the OECD on May 7th, and Estonia, Israel, Russia, and Slovenia are on deck to become members. In time, being a small country that is not a part of the OECD could result in reduced trade opportunities.

Also on the plus side, Uruguay estimates that Uruguayan residents (both citizens and foreign residents) have an estimated 8 billion dollars in overseas accounts. Although asset holders will likely keep their overseas holdings out of countries who have OECD treaties with Uruguay, the wealth tax liability could add some revenue to Uruguay’s government budget.

On the minus sides, both parts of the new tax proposal are fundamental changes to Uruguay’s culture that will likely meet resistance. Banking privacy in Uruguay is not just a tax issue. Uruguayans have fiscal rights, the same as human rights and civil rights. Banking privacy is part of the Uruguayan constitution, and considered a consecrated right. Also, Uruguay has a history of only taxing activities that take place inside Uruguay. Taxing offshore assets will be a completely new concept.

However perhaps the biggest challenge to the proposal is that many foreign residents and multinational companies who would be affected by the tax let it be known they would pull out of Uruguay to avoid tax reporting requirements for the same assets in two countries.

So with pressures weighing heavily from all quarters, Uruguay’s Economic Minister, Fernando Lorenzo, held a briefing before a June 1^st Cabinet meeting to report that the proposed tax legislation was still being “tweaked”. In the briefing he specifically stated that in the revision foreigners who come to retire in Uruguay and companies based outside of Uruguay will not affected.

Although there are still unknown details with this piece of legislation, the quick turnaround and strong public statement by Lorenzo indicate that it is a priority to the Executive Power, who created the bill, that Uruguay remains attractive to foreign retirees and foreign based businesses who want to live and do business in Uruguay. 

This article first appeared on  http://www.paradiseuruguayblog.com/2010/06/uruguay-tax-proposal-rocks-boat.html  and has been reposted with their permission.

More information on Real Estate in Uruguay
Contact the author of this article - David Hammond
David Hammond is the author of Buying Real Estate in Uruguay, an ebook available to purchase and download 

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