I get it, being a gringo in a foreign land comes with its own set of challenges. When I first arrived in Ecuador, I felt a bit like a walking ATM machine. Every little mishap seemed like a personal attack – from being overcharged twenty cents at the local tienda to struggling with the bank’s endless requirements for opening an account. Every cab that didn’t stop for me in the rain felt like a gringo-specific slight.
The first year was tough. I spent most of it feeling like a victim, constantly griping about how I was being treated differently. Some of this was undoubtedly true – as expats or tourists, we do get treated differently than locals. But the real difference comes from how we choose to deal with these situations. And, believe it or not, it’s not all bad. In fact, there are plenty of reasons to be grateful for being a gringo in Cuenca.
One thing that helped me shift my perspective was my gratitude journal. But more on that later. First, let me explain why being a gringo in Cuenca has its perks.
1. Financial Advantages
Coming from a country with a stronger economy than Ecuador automatically puts us at an advantage. Our social security systems are more robust, and our job opportunities are more plentiful. For instance, if you’re here on a retirement visa, it means you’ve proven that your Social Security income is around $1,400 a month – a figure that many local retirees can only dream of. Even economic refugees who move here because they can’t afford life in the US anymore should be grateful that Ecuador offers a viable alternative.
2. Assumed Education and Respect
Another surprising benefit is the respect we get due to assumed education. Many Cuencanos see gringos and assume we’re well-educated and knowledgeable. This probably stems from the high value they place on education and the many family members they have studying abroad. While not all of us might be academic geniuses, we often get the benefit of the doubt unless we prove otherwise.
Cuenca has a strong social class system, but as gringos, we have the unique ability to fit in anywhere. We’re not entirely free from discrimination, but we can move up and down the social ladder more freely based on merit rather than our country of origin. This flexibility is something many locals don’t have.
4. Long-Term Thinking
In business, long-term thinking is crucial, and it’s something many local businesses struggle with due to their focus on day-to-day operations. This is where we have an edge. Our real estate business, for example, has thrived because we prioritize strategic initiatives over immediate gains. This long-term mindset is something that sets us apart and has contributed to our success.
5. Business Opportunities
Being a gringo also opens doors. I’ve been able to secure meetings and opportunities that might not have been available to locals. Whether it’s working on a Galapagos-based travel business or navigating Cuenca’s real estate market, my outsider perspective and novelty often intrigue local businesses enough to give me a chance. However, convincing them to change based on my experience is another story.
6. Leveraging Technology
Ecuador’s tech scene is still growing, and as someone with a background in digital marketing, I’ve found numerous opportunities to create and innovate. The challenge is finding the time and local talent to bring these ideas to life. But the potential is there, and it’s exciting to think about the possibilities.
Practicing Gratitude
Now, back to the gratitude journal. This simple tool has had a profound impact on my outlook. Every morning and evening, I spend five minutes jotting down things I’m grateful for and setting small goals for the day. It’s more specific than a regular journal and helps me maintain a positive mindset. Any old book will do, but I invested in a dedicated five-minute journal designed for this purpose. Here’s a link (affiliate) in case you do want to purchase it – but again, it isn’t necessary. Don’t let the lack of a special journal stop you from starting.
Practicing gratitude goes beyond journaling. My family and I even hug trees by the Yanuncay River to show our appreciation for nature. It might sound silly, but it works for us and improves our overall mental health.
Wrapping Up
While being a gringo in Cuenca comes with its challenges, it also offers numerous advantages. Embracing a positive mindset and practicing gratitude can transform your experience and help you appreciate the unique opportunities available to us. So, if you find yourself feeling like a victim, try shifting your perspective – you might just find that life as a gringo in Cuenca is something to be grateful for.
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Gringos with Gratitude? 6 Reasons to Embrace Life in Cuenca(Transcript)
Jason
00:00
I get it, as a gringo you hate it when you’re targeted as an easy mark by locals. Being treated like a walking ATM machine is not a pleasant experience for anyone. But I’d also argue that living in defense mode and thinking that everybody is out to get you all the time is way worse.
That’s how I spent my first year in Ecuador whilst I was adjusting to the culture, the local tienda would accidentally overcharge me twenty cents – “I’ve been gringo’d”. The bank wouldn’t let me open an account without local references – “How unfair!” The cab driver wouldn’t stop for me on a Friday evening in the rain. “It’s because I’m a gringo, isn’t it?”
I could go on and on and believe me, the first year I was here I did go on and on and on and on about how I was being treated differently than locals. Some of this was undoubtedly true, you do get treated differently as a tourist or expat than as a local, but how we deal with that makes all the difference. And it’s not all bad.
In this video, I’m going to share with you 6 reasons why I’m grateful for being a gringo in Cuenca, Ecuador.
01:15
Something that has helped me maintain a positive mental focus is my gratitude journal. I will go through this a little later in more detail.
You’ve probably noticed that I’m from Australia. This means that I absolutely identify as a convict, but the jury is still out on whether I’m technically classified as a gringo. Perhaps I’m gringo-ish, or gringo-adjacent, gringo-like, or even gringuito. No, I really don’t like that last one. Let’s scrub that.
Anyway, you get the point. I’m certainly gringo enough that I get treated like one by locals under most circumstances, but it’s a two-way street.
01:57
And it is not always negative. This video is all about the positive aspects that I’ve experienced in my everyday life.
I also find it extremely helpful to recognize what I am grateful for. It can have a profound effect on my daily outlook and maybe it can impact yours too. Let’s see.
Firstly, let’s start off with perhaps the most obvious advantage; financial. We come from countries that have a stronger economy than Ecuador. This means that we automatically have access to jobs that pay significantly more and more robust Social Security systems.
02:32
This is a core reason why many young Ecuadorians have moved to developed nations like the US. They envy the economic opportunities granted to us before we arrived in Ecuador. This is a clear gringo advantage. I think this applies to all gringos as well, regardless of their individual financial situation. Let’s go through a couple.
First, let’s assume you’re here in Ecuador on a retirement visa.
02:57
This means that you had to prove that your Social Security income is more than thirteen hundred and eighty dollars around fourteen hundred dollars something like that. There are not many Ecuadorian retirees earning this sort of pension, and it is a very privileged position. I know, I know, you’ve most likely paid into this Social Security via your employer, et cetera, but so have Ecuadorians. You just happen to come from a country that has a stronger economy.
Another example is economic refugees. Those who have moved here because they cannot afford to live in the US anymore should be super grateful that they have Ecuador as an option.
03:37
I can empathize with the fact that your original country has likely let you down because you can no longer afford to live there, and I can see how there is a temptation to just concentrate on this negative rather than being grateful that Ecuador has opened its doors to you. I don’t really want this to come across as preaching, but my experience does suggest that focusing on the positive will result in a better quality of life. I know what I would choose, but you do you.
The second advantage is that there is an assumption that gringos are educated and know what we are talking about.
04:12
Education levels are important to Cuencanos and I have experienced numerous occasions where it’s just assumed that I must be well educated and by extension smart just because I’m from a developed country. Now obviously not all gringos are particularly well educated or super intelligent, but unless you open your mouth and prove otherwise you will generally get this benefit of the doubt. I also think it helps that a lot of Cuencanos have family members studying abroad. This can be a huge financial burden, but clearly, they see the educational benefits of studying overseas as outweighing the costs.
04:52
Gringos have also likely studied overseas, so the respect that they have for this tends to rub off on us too.
The third advantage I see as a gringo is that we just find it easy to basically fit in anywhere in the Cuenca social class system. Newer expats may find it quite difficult to see this one as it is not something that is easily visible on the surface. You do need to dig a little bit deeper.
05:17
I also believe that one of the reasons expats don’t pick up on this social class system that easily is that we don’t experience the same class discrimination that locals can face. But make no mistake, there is a very strong social class system in Cuenca. The same opportunities are not open to those in the lower classes that are available to those in the higher classes.
05:39
And you can definitely argue that class systems exist in every society, and Cuenca is no different. And I would accept that argument too. But I’m focusing on Cuenca here and the class system is very strong and many times it does feel like discrimination. For example, it’s still all too common to see property rental ads that explicitly state no extranjeros or no foreigners. You’d think this would be bad news for gringos, but they aren’t referring to gringos in these ads. They are largely referring to Colombians, Venezuelans, and Peruvians. So, whilst gringos are obviously also foreigners, we are put into an entirely different bucket altogether.
06:22
Where exactly gringos fit in the social class system is not entirely set in stone. We’re definitely below the ruling elite, but we do have the advantage of being able to move up and down based on merit, not just on a country of origin.
Fourthly, we do have the luxury of long term thinking. This is a hard one for me to explain without coming across as condescending to Ecuadorians, and I’m going to try my best, but just know that it is not my intent to denigrate anybody. The best example I can give is in a real estate business, Yapatree Properties.
06:56
The vast majority of agents we come across in the market struggle to grow successful businesses. I’m sure this is similar in any country, but I put this down at least in part to agents or business owners focusing the vast majority of their time on the day-to-day operations. They need to focus only on the rental or sale in front of them in order to bring in enough income for their families for that month.
07:22
This generally doesn’t leave any time for strategic long-term initiatives that will really set their business up for growth. Scaling a business is tough everywhere, particularly so here in Ecuador. One of the growth barriers I see all the time is a lack of systems and processes. I would comfortably argue that very few businesses here have these processes in place that actually allow for their future growth. Even hospitals don’t have robust processes. Go check out my recent interview with the popular Doctor Maite for more on this. Now this combination of only having time to work on the day-to-day and the overall lack of processes results in many businesses struggling to grow.
08:06
I’m not saying that our business is immune to these challenges, but I do think that our business is much better equipped to deal with them. There’s a lot that a new expat business owner needs to learn, but long-term thinking is what sets our real estate business apart from so many others, and I’m confident that that’s one of the reasons that we have been growing as we have been.
The fifth advantage I see is business meetings. As a gringo, I’m often able to get meetings that otherwise wouldn’t be available to a local. I’m going to give you two different scenarios where this helps me.
Firstly, my partner Michelle and I have been working together on multiple business projects here in Ecuador.
08:50
For example, we’ve been slowly working on a little Galapagos-based travel business for the past few years. This business requires us to meet with various providers such as cruise companies, travel agencies, and other travel-related businesses and Michelle has been working in the industry solely focusing on the Galapagos for the past 15 years. So, my assumption was that Michelle would be able to just easily arrange these meetings because she has the relevant experience, but it was not that easy. I had zero experience in the Galapagos, but I did have some outside experience with digital marketing, and that made all the difference.
09:30
I was able to secure those meetings because I had a slightly different point of reference and these particular companies appreciated that.
I also have similar experiences in our real estate business where I can get cut through in circumstances where perhaps I don’t deserve to. Meetings with developers and other players in the real estate industry come relatively easy for me, and I know it’s definitely not the case for a lot of local agents. I put this down to a few different factors, but I think it’s mainly the novelty factor at play.
10:02
There really are not that many of us who have managed to create successful businesses in Ecuador. So, I think this intrigues a lot of locals, at least enough intrigue that we’re able to secure some of these meetings. There have been some instances where a business here is genuinely impressed by the different skills and learnings that I bring to the table. But being perfectly honest, I really don’t think that this extends to the business actually making any changes based on my outside experience. I can’t get businesses here to change their ways, no matter how hard I try to ram the benefits and ROI down their throats.
10:41
And boy have I tried. But that is a topic for another day.
Technology-based opportunities. Now if you’ve spent any time in Ecuador, you will quickly realize that technology is not the country’s strongest attribute. The culture around technology-based opportunities is still very immature. For example, the startup scene is very small, but it is growing. The infrastructure for accepting payments is lacking and expensive for businesses and very few businesses choose to operate a website.
11:13
Most businesses rely almost exclusively on social media and WhatsApp for their marketing and communications. Whilst it’s tempting to just sit back and complain about the lack of technology and websites, as an outsider coming in with this knowledge, gringos are at a huge advantage. If we want to compete in these fields. We have the relevant experience. Every week I do come across another opportunity to create a website, product, or service that I think would do very well in Ecuador. Most of these are digital related because that is my background and it’s easy for me to see these types of opportunities.
11:50
The difficult part is finding the time to action them, especially if I need local talent to help grow them. I’ve accepted the fact that I will need to invest a lot of my time in training and upskilling employees or partners if I do want to pursue these opportunities. If you’re watching this thinking yeah, I’d like to get involved in a project, do feel free to email me [email protected]. But to be clear, I am not looking for employees, I am looking for someone to drive projects and also take on some risk.
I do feel a little uneasy about doing videos like this simply because it involves a lot of generalization and to a degree, stereotyping.
12:29
The aim is to walk the fine line between giving you some actionable suggestions without labeling too much. How did I do? Feel free to let me know in the comments.
I said at the start of this video that I spent the first year in Ecuador basically in victim mode. I’d rationalize every small thing that would go wrong as some sort of personal attack against me. Sometimes I’d even get over-aggressive at people that I thought had wronged me because I wasn’t a local. This was unhealthy and I needed to make a change to my outlook. And right now, I am going to show you the tool that helped me go from being in this constant feeling of being a gringo victim to appreciating and respecting these differences.
13:14
I use this particular gratitude journal. Every day I’d spend 5 minutes in the morning and evening writing in it. It is a lot more specific than a regular journal. The entries are all about showing gratitude for things that have happened and also a little bit of goal-setting for the day. Any regular book is fine for the journal, but I did take it to the next step and purchase this five-minute journal. This is designed exactly for this purpose and I will provide a link to it in the description if you want to, you know, go that extra leg but again, you certainly do not need to buy a dedicated journal like this.
13:47
Just any old book that you keep by a nightstand so you can easily find it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Keeping this journal has really helped to maintain a positive outlook and also just let go of some of those things that do seem to trigger anxiety. There’s obviously a whole range of activities that can help you become more grateful. I’d love to hear about some of your techniques in the comments.
14:13
If you happen to be hanging out on the Yanuncay River, you may see people, including our family, hugging trees. One of the main reasons we do this is to practice gratitude towards Mother Nature. I can’t tell you exactly why it works. All I can say is that it does seem to have an impact on our overall mental health. The first time you do it, you may feel a little bit silly, but who cares? Give it a go and see, you may just find that it works really well for you too.
14:42
That’s all for today’s video. If you did get some value from it, perhaps you can show your gratitude by giving it a little like. Gracias. I appreciate you. As for your next video, maybe check out this recent real estate trip that we did.
Chao Chao
One Response
Love this article, Jason — thank you!