Useless speculations but curious none the less

[El Diablo]

I'm curious about how many guys are actually getting married through the whole Latin MOB (for lack of a better word) process.  I'm not talking about fiancee visas but rather real legal marriages between non-Colombian men and Colombian women.  

Although totally anecdotal, I know of about ten guys who have married Calenas in the last six to eight months but I'm sure there a lot more.  But how many? Does anybody really know?   I think the easiest and best place to look is Cali as it is clearly the most traveled to destination in Colombia.  

Let's start with how many guys are traveling to Cali first and tackle the number of marriages later.  My guess is that at any one time there are perhaps thirty to fifty gringos in Cali.  I base this on the vacancy rates that I have observed at the agencies, my observations at the gringo hangouts, my airplane flights and a certain error factor.  If on average there are 40 gringos in Cali at any given time and on average their time in Cali for the year is two weeks, the number of different guys who travel to Cali in one year is 1043.  (40x356/14) I think this may be a generous estimate but what do I know .

The next important question is,  what is the probability of marriage of one of these 1043 to a Calena not over the life of their MOB journey but rather in one year.  Among my own Cali gringo friends it is pretty high.  I think about 70% of my friends are married or will get married but the journey has been for more than a year.  If you factor in the time, the rate per year would drop to perhaps 40%.  But I don't beleive my friends are typical as they are more or less Cali regulars if not addicts.  I think a good if not generous estimate might be one in four guys who travel to Cali get married in any given year.

So my best guess is that this last year there were 261 marriages to Calenas (1043 divided by 4).   Anyway,  I think this estimate may be high but I'm curious as to what others think or know.

El Diablo

[Houndog]

... in response to Useless speculations but curious none th..., posted by El Diablo on Jul 3, 2001

Maybe someone good at 'searching' can find some stats on the numbers of MOB marriages per yr. and maybe even per region or country....

http://www.fedstats.gov/

...the site is huge...and filled with an incredible amount of info...all MOB marriages are channeled thru the Dept. of Justice/INS...maybe not tracked and logged, but I might have been using wrong keywords or ??
HD

[DallasTexas]

... in response to Useless speculations but curious none th..., posted by El Diablo on Jul 3, 2001

I went thru LatinBest and this year alone she has had nearly 60 marriages (or so she claims) and over 660 in the past 10 years.  

[El Diablo]

... in response to Re: Useless speculations but curious non..., posted by DallasTexas on Jul 3, 2001

I would be extremely sceptical of a number that large but again I'm trying to make some sense of this whole thing.  

I doubt that even the most popular agencies receive much more than a couple hundred different gringos in a year.  If this is the case and being only half way through the year, if she has had 60 marriages so far then her marriage rate would be upwards of 50% or more.  I suppose it's possible but again I'm sceptical unless I heard some credible evidence to the contrary.

I have a friend who was the director of the now defunct agency Latin Dream Girls.  I don't believe their numbers were anything remotely close to this.  I think it is also possible that double counting may occur.  Some of my Calena friends belong to five or six agencies, if one of them gets married, all the agencies could rightfully claim that one of their female members got married.

El Diablo

[Houndog]

... in response to Re: Re: Useless speculations but curious..., posted by El Diablo on Jul 3, 2001

I'm with you on thinking 60 in 6 months...2 a week..week in week out sounds on the high side to me also. I think a little may be skepisism, also how could they keep that many weddings a secret? Surely more than a half dozen out of hundreds would get puplic notice..

I would like to get a realistic picture just like you though.

HD

[Houndog]

... in response to Useless speculations but curious none th..., posted by El Diablo on Jul 3, 2001

261 div by 52(weeks) = 5.02 per week....possible I suppose...but seems high based on how few are publicized on forums like this for example.

I've wondered at times myself how large or small the numbers are.

So far this year I only know of 1 marriage that took place in Cartagena, along with about 6(max) K1's.

HD

[El Diablo]

... in response to Re: Useless speculations but curious non..., posted by Houndog on Jul 3, 2001

I think five a week sounds rather high too. If we modify both my assumptions just a little, the estimate can come down quite a bit.  

But then again when I count the marriages I know of it really makes me wonder.  Let's see, two guys who rented my apartment, your buddy Doug Y., a friend of mine from Miami, one Calena amiga, two Calena aquantances and last and by no means least BOTH of my ex Calena novias. (My gosh I thought they'd be in mourning for at least a year but they both got married within six months -- oh well at least I brought them luck (-:  )  

Anyway, my point is these are people I know only through my little circle of friends and aquaintences.  Anyway, maybe Norm or some of the other agency owners might enlighten us with the trade secrets.

El Diablo
 

[El Diablo]

... in response to Useless speculations but curious none th..., posted by El Diablo on Jul 3, 2001

n/t