From my terrain in north-east Guatemala, marked by national and regional power configurations featuring violence, I propose in this article to revert to the key role attached by my ethnography to influence. In particular, I will return here to my fear, closely linked to my perception of the dynamics of violence in the region, and to its evolution according to the degree of co-temporality (Fabian, 2006) on which I am looking. This co-timing, which is a prerequisite for human communication and the way in which it is time bound, is what the anthropologist is working to build with its interlocutors on the ground (Fabian, 2006). Introducing the idea that there is not a single intersubjective time, a single time-lag, that concept, as I understand it, considers temporality to be a certain relation to the time built and structured by the concerns and the scale of priorities specific to everyday life in that period. This relationship to the particular time then plays as a grid of perception that can be transported with you. By reverting to my fear, the principle of co-temporality has thus opened me an initial opportunity to analyse the violence in the region, which is also difficult to understand. In this text, I will therefore focus on highlighting this intrinsic link between time and perception by following my perception of violence throughout these three years of research rhythm between Guatemala and Belgium.