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Four Guatemalan migrants nap under a giant mango on the outskirts of Tenosique, Mexico. For many Central American migrants Tenosique is a resting point before they hop on the freight trains going north to the U.S./Mexico border. The four men and I had spent a fitful night of sleep under a house that doubled as a store owned by a Guatemalan migrant living near the tracks. The farm's owner allows migrants to rest, wash up and prepare for their treacherous train journey. These men all made it into the United States and I have maintained contact with one of them. ..Shortly after this photograph was taken the freight company that ran the trains for more than a century closed the company and abandoned running freight. For months the train didn't run, but recently a Japanese company once again started running freight from Central America to Mexico. ..6292 people were murdered in Guatemala in 2008. Most of them were killed in the capital of Guatemala City. The violence in this small Central American country knows no limits and currently it is one of the most violent and insecure places in the world that is not in a declared state war. People are consistently murdered for their cell phones on the streets, bus drivers are shot in the head in broad daylight in front of crowds of onlookers and people are openly extorted and killed if they do not pay. ..Violence is on the rise and many here feel that the current government has little or no control over the various forces undermining basic civilian normalcy...As part of a project examining the collective experience of Latin American migrants to the United States I have traveled to Guatemala at least 4 times over the past several years to show the devastating effect that violence has on everyday people in the nation's capital and demonstrate why some people choose to leave their country's homeland in search of a better and hopefully safer life in the United States. ..With the daily drumbeat of intimidation, fear, extortion, an (KEYSTONE/NOOR/jon lowenstein / NOOR)