Taking pictures of the river in the Rio Grande Valley isn't easy, and for a  number of reasons.  First off, the river is hard to approach anywhere except where roads lead directly to it.  Oh, it's easy enough to take pictures where the international bridges cross it . . . but then you only have a picture of a bridge.  I didn't come home from there with a single picture of the river itself.  It hides from you, and that's fitting.  Almost everything there hides from you at first.

My three day stay there was mostly in Edinburg, a very nice little city just north of McAllen.  Hidalgo County is heavily populated.  I'm not even sure they know how many people are there because I see no way a trustworthy census could be taken.  They all look alike, these borderlanders from the valley.  The river separating Texas from Mexico is more fluid than anyone suspects, unless he's a borderlander.  The population is easily 95 percent hispanic, or latino.  And the entire area is metropolitan, almost.  It seems that you never leave the city since all the towns run together there - McAllen, Pharr, Edinburg, and Mission.  And it's as modern as any metropolitan area you'd find anywhere in the U.S. - and nicer than most of them, in fact.  Their schools, for instance, would make anyone jealous.  You won't find facilities like they have for schools in most places.

I spend my first day there driving around on highways as smooth as glass, and plentiful enough to link communites and make them easy to get to.  I see some signs of poverty, like in all cities, but not many . . . not nearly what you'd see in Corpus Christi, Houston, San Antonio, or even Austin.  Folks in that area are a little stand-offish . . . until you approach them.  Then they are as congenial as you'd find anywhere.  It's easy to start a conversation.

"Where does all the wealth come from?" I ask several people.  One guy smiles and says, "You know, that's a good question."  Another guy says, "Where does it come from anywhere?  Lots of professional people have moved here, and their jobs pay well."  Still another person tells me, "It's the internation trade that brings it."  And finally, one guy says, "Drugs, man.  Some of these million dollar homes belong to drug lords."

The area has a hum to it . . . an almost irritating background sound that's not all that noticeable at first.  Then, I realize it's the sound of motion, of people moving about.  This is a high energy area, lots of motion, and most of that motion is caused by people working.  Yeah, working because it takes a lot of work to keep a place like that maintained.  The construction business, for instance, is booming.  New houses and businesses going up everywhere.  Property is relatively inexpensive still, and you find some great deals on housing.  If you can afford $250,000 for a house, you can live in real luxury in that area.

I spoke with a neighbor to my host, my former son-in-law, and he says that property taxes there are getting oppressive.  I told him it's that way all over Texas, that the local governments down here are the worst enemy the taxpayer has in this state.  We have no state income tax, a good deal, but the cities and counties rape you when it comes to property tax.  This particular guy was selling his quarter of a million dollar home to get out from under the heavy taxation on it.  He says that's come about in just the past few years.

But cities with exploding populations have lots of workers to pay.  All those beautiful schools don't come free, and that's where a big percent of the property tax money goes.  It's hard to bitch about having nice schools; easy to bitch about oppressive taxation.  Law enforcement is also expensive, and if anyone needs good law enforcement, it's the borderlanders . . . even in the valley.  The message is simple - don't burden yourself with an expensive house.  Find something smaller, still nice, but in a district where property taxes are less.  Let the rich pay the taxes.

Like the river, some things are hard to find at first.  Once found, they are even harder to focus on.  It seems that few people really understand the border problems, and I'm starting to get a sense of why.  The river itself hides in a flood plain of thick brush that's practically impossible to get through - for the average person.  I've seldom seen such thick, uninviting brush country . . . but illegal immigrants make their way through it on a daily basis.  You see border patrol vehicles everywhere . . .and still they come.  To them, the thicket is cover, just as it is for the wildlife along the river.

Yes, the river hides from you, and I'll be awhile getting images of it.  It may take me longer to get good images of the area itself, of the people who live there.  It's easy to see, just hard to get in good focus.  I went up river on Sunday, spent a day looking at country that's not citified, not as modern.  And I got a view of the border that's indeed still primative . . .and we'll show that in blogs to come later.

D. Paz, 1/29/08