Guatemala Chat

This room mixes urban Guatemala with the rest of it. On one side the metropolitan sprawl — the capital, Mixco and Villa Nueva run together as one built-up area holding a large share of the country. On the other, Quetzaltenango, which nobody calls by its full name — it is Xela — and the highland towns. The room is #guatemala, often searched for as «chat chapín».

The other half of the room lives abroad. Guatemalan emigration to the United States is large enough to show up daily: people write from Los Angeles, Houston and New York, and since Guatemala stays on UTC−6 year-round while the United States does shift its clocks, the gap moves with the season: California runs one or two hours behind, the east coast two or one ahead. That is why the conversation carries on well past midnight local time.

Recurring subjects follow that double life — remittance fees, consulate and passport paperwork, who knows someone in which city — plus the national league, capital traffic, and the Fuego volcano when ash starts falling. Guatemala City, Mixco, Villa Nueva and Xela each have their own room; all of them are at Guatemala rooms.