The journey of Rossanna and Widman began in the Guatemalan village of San Juan La Laguna, on the turquoise Lake Atitlan, where they met when he bought the tortillas she was selling for lunch. It ended in the murky waters of the Rio Grande. The couple drowned as they tried to wade across the notorious part of the river that links Piedras Negras, Mexico, with Eagle Pass, Texas, on Feb. 24, just two among the hundreds of people who lose their lives trying to cross into the U.S. every year.

In June, relatives collected Widman’s casket from Guatemala City and carried it back along the winding highland roads to his hometown of Yepocapa in a white Mitsubishi van and then to his final resting place. Dozens of community members filed through the streets to mourn the popular 26-year-old, often called by his middle name Alex. Rossanna, his 25-year-old partner, was buried in San Juan La Laguna, near her family. In the Guatemalan highlands, the U.S. election campaigning about immigration and the salvos about who is doing what to secure the border are far away. For the people here, the story is simply that of two of their young who left to seek a better life and earn some money in “El Norte” and came back in boxes in the back of a van.

“She wanted to be a chef but we didn’t have the money for her to study,” said Francisca, Rossanna’s mother. “That’s why she wanted to go to the USA. She was going to work in a restaurant. I didn’t want her to leave but she insisted that five years would give her and Alex the opportunity to raise money to build their own house and open a restaurant here.” (Reuters)

Photo: A group of migrants, including Rossana and Widman (center) hold onto each other as they are swept downstream while attempting to cross into Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S. (Reuters)…[+]