Spotlight Guatemala · Global Voices
David Sasaki

As the U.S. and Guatemalan mens soccer teams prepare for tonight's match in Guatemala City, it appears that the Guatemalan blogging community is beginning to reach out more to English-language readers. On a post about the promotion of Guatemala's world heritage sites, Guate360 writes, “it is not uncommon for us at Guate360 to post bilingual entries. When we do; it is done with the awareness that we have a global audience.” Chapinadas is another Guatemalan blog with posts in both English and Spanish. Today's post covers both the good and bad of the upcoming fall series of Survivor: The Maya Empire, which starts September 15th and anticipates 20 million viewers in the US:
In Guatemala there are a lot of mixed opinions about this topic. On the one hand, you have people glad that this is happening to Guatemala in the hope that our beautiful country gets to the place it deserves with regards to tourism.
On the other hand, there are a lot of people unhappy with the fact that this series is taken place in a Maya city that has not been excavated and investigated properly. There could be a lot of damage to its temples, murals, stelaes, and other things around it. There is also the fact, that in order for this series to be filmed there is a need for a lot of people to be there. Also, another factor is that a lot of trees have been cut to make the sets, and to make room for the filming.
The weblog Survivor.com, however, seems to be less concerned with the show's impact on Guatemalans compared to highlighting the “blistering heat … torrential rain and … all kinds of biting, stinging creatures.”
Rob Mercatante is back in Guatemala City, but explains, “one of the final reasons that I haven't been filling this journal full of Guatemala news is that I, like the rest of the world, have been watching in horror as the devastating events have unfolded in New Orleans.”
Oscar from DesdeGuate.com says that just 15 days after the Guatemalan wireless provider, Comcel announced EDGE based wireless service, competitor Telefonica announced their own new 1x-EVDO based service which allows roaming internet access in all major parts of Guatemala City for $50 a month plus tax.
Christian Van Der Henst notes that Project EnRed, which encourages students throughout Guatemala to start blogs and use the internet, will be in the city of Quetzaltenango this week and then Antigua next Monday. Christian was also invited by elsalvador.com to discuss strategies for their new program, Operación Red, which encourages more digital participation in El Salvador.
If your Guatemalan curiosity is somehow not satisfied, Guate360 has a great collection of last week's posts from around the blogging community.