I don’t recall having ever seen a cockroach before coming to México. In the UK, our predominant pests tend to be rats and Tories.
One day, during one of my first trips, Kass came running out the bathroom screaming “UNA CUCARACHA.” I peeked inside, and saw my first cockroach. In that moment, I thought two things.
The first thing I thought was: does this mean the song ‘La Cucaracha’ is about a cockroach? Yes. Except, it’s also about Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta. The prevailing story goes that the troops of revered revolutionary general Pancho Villa sang a version of the song which framed Huerta as the cockroach. It contains such lines as: “The cockroach can’t walk any more because it doesn’t have marijuana to smoke,” a dig at Huerta, who had a reputation for being a drunk. Since the Mexican Revolution, hundreds of versions of the song — some with lyrics mentioning cockroaches, some without, but all using the same melody — have spawned, including a few Baby Shark-esque YouTube animations for the iPad kids.
The second thing I thought was: gross, I guess I hate cockroaches now.
Cockroaches are kinda just accepted as a part of life here. No matter how much you clean, there’ll always be one or two each year who don’t take the hint and turn up to the party uninvited.
Fumigation services are, as a result, quite common. And that’s how we ended up with the cockroach on the horizon — a sight that looks like it could be one of those pieces Banksy did where he added attack helicopters and CCTV cameras into classical paintings. A once-unobstructed view of the Cerro de la Silla, now charmingly interrupted by a pest control ad on a billboard depicting a thwarted cucaracha.
