Vecino = neighbor

All Guatemalans know each other.

Ok, that may not necessarily be exactly true, but after being here 7 months, it sure seems that way.

A month or so ago, a group of us went to vaccinate chickens. When we missed the bus up to one of our aldeas, we just waited near the turn-off to go up the mountain, and hopped in the cab of the first person to pass. The way the women were talking to the driver, and the small size of my town, I figured they had known them for a while. Nope. He was a random deliveryman. Within the 25-minute drive, I found out about his impending wedding, AND what every single one of his relatives thought of the girl.

I was riding back with my family back from Cabañas, a neighboring town in Zacapa, and as we passed by the bus stop, we saw a small family with all their groceries, waiting on a bus to pass by. My host sister and her husband stopped the truck so they could hop in the back with us, and we continued on our way, eventually dropping them off in a small aldea of Cabañas, and later when I asked my family how they knew them, they said “Oh, we didn’t, we just figured they needed a ride.”

The way the mail works here is if someone sends me a package (hint hint), they only need to write my name on the package, and the town I live in, and in the entire population of 6,000 people, they’ll be able to find me. I moved to a different house here in town 2 days ago, and when I went to the post office to tell them the lady told me she already knew and would just walk the package down to my house for me.

I guess another thing that helps, besides the immediate bond Guatemalans form with random strangers, is that Guatemala is so small. Guatemala is roughly the size of Tennessee, and when you meet someone from your “departamento” it’s like meeting someone from your county or town, but it’s crazy that every time I mention Zacapa, someone knows someone from where I live! I live in a small town about two hours away from the capitol of Zacapa, with only roughly 6-8,000 people, but there’s still someone’s cousin or friend or even worst enemy out here.

And that’s why I bet you could play “7 Degrees of ‘________’” with any person in this country.