Fearsome Creatures in Gardens Near Mexican Border

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 15118, 29 October 1949, Page 4

Fearsome Creatures in Gardens Near Mexican Border

Town And Country Women

WAR BRIDE RETURNS FROM THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY If there’s anything housewives and Mexicans in the Rio Grande Talley have in common it’s the unwelcome visiter —the Cockroach.

This persistent pest (there he is at least three inches long) is no respecter of households and will enter the cleanest and most carefully disinfected kitchen, according to Mrs J. E. Smith, whose home is in San Benito.

Mrs Smith, formerly Patricia Smith, of Wellington, who married a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, is paying a holiday visit to her mother, Mrs Barry Smith, ITataitai, with her small daughter, Pamela. She is eloquent on the subject of “wild life” in her district —not referring in particular to the night clubs on. the Mexican Border.

The garden abounds in such fearsome creatures as black widow spiders, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, and scorpions. The cockroach lives in the palm trees in between attempts to invade the house. The entire house is screened, but the opening of a screen door is the signal for armies of cockroaches to slither inside.

Mrs Smith is always at war with the pests and the heat. The heat is her worst enemy, causing mildewed clothing and rusted kitchen gadgets. No car lasts in the valley climate longer than five years, due to the rusting of its parts. San Benito has only two seasons, summer and winter, and rain in only two months of the year, May and September. It is a constant struggle to keep a lawn and garden, and the health of children is endangered by the terrific humidity. Mrs Smith said her first impression of the birds and animals on her return to New Zealand were their fat bodies.” All animals near her home were streamlined” in comparison. Even her wire haired terrier had to submit tc the indignity of being shaved like

a poodle on the advice of a veterinary surgeon, she said. San Benito is only a small town of some 10,000 inhabitants, almost half of them Mexicans, situated on the citrus-growing belt of the Rio Grande valley. Mrs Smith explained that the houses are all built in the sprawling ranch style or like the Spanish haciendas —spread out for coolness. Popular furniture is either antique or strictly modern and a few of the homes have the attractive and expensive ranch furniture. Made of heavy wood it is laced with rawhide and the beds often feature steers’ horns as ends. In the desert setting it is quite picturesque, Mrs Smith remarked. Each year Mexico celebrates Charro days—a festival when everyone joins the fun of dancing, singing, and even the American population wear Mexican or Spanish costume. Mrs Smith described some of the beautiful traditional costumes as featuring a black satin skirt heavily encrusted with sequins in symbolic patterns worn with a batiste bodice and lace off-the-shoulder frill.

Many Americans living around the Mexican border speak Spanish, but the everyday language used to speak to servants is Mex-Tex (a combination of Mexican and Texan). Mexican labour is cheap, with kitchen help and gardeners easy to find. The Mexicans who swarm over the border to work in the citrus orchards and on the cotton crops are known as the “wet backs” through having swum the Rio Grande.

San Benito people play bridge as their most popular social pursuit, but Mrs Smith said a Spanish game similar to gin rummy—Canasta is at present the rage.