“How can we help?” Christopher asked him.
Ruben blew out, his breath barely lifting the lank tendril of greasy hair that hung over his right eye. He was holding a lengthy to-do list jotted hastily in pencil. Just skimming the list of projects was overwhelming: removing the debris off the train tracks. Filling empty sacks with sand. Constructing makeshift walls. Half of the work seemed senseless in the face of the relentless river still churning so strongly that a five-foot chunk of concrete bobbed like a bathtub toy before the current hurtled it farther downriver. Dad was right. Even if we worked all night, would we make a dent of difference? Maybe if every single tourist behind us would help, we might be able to clear this small section of track. But how do you mobilize volunteers when desperation is real and danger feels close?
Without thinking, I knelt down to take a photo of some of the workers, focusing first on a thin young man dragging a massive tree limb that looked three times his weight. My lens found a familiar figure who should have been lounging in Cusco, sipping pisco sours, but was clearing the train tracks with volunteers a third her age. The same woman who’d lagged so far behind everyone on the Inca Trail that my father had accused her of jeopardizing the trip. The same woman who encouraged everyone—Mom, Helen, me—with her stories.
This was the photograph I knew I had to make: a woman who chose to build instead of tear down. I framed Grace just left of center and waited until the exact moment when she straightened, holding a bouquet of torn branches. I got my shot. Next, I zoomed in to a ponytailed woman in a Penn sweatshirt, who scowled at me. Complaining to her friend loudly, she said, “If everyone would stop playing tourist and actually help, we might get something done around here.”
Chastened, I lowered the camera and tried to listen to what Ruben was saying to the group around him. He lifted his eyes off the to-do list and said, “We need a couple of people to play soccer with some kids.”
“That’s helping?” asked a balding man with a potbelly.
“Have you ever seen what kind of trouble bored kids can get into?” countered a stout woman whose wide-brimmed rain hat could have been an umbrella. She said, “I’d volunteer, but I blew out my knee gardening.”
“I’ll play,” Mom offered. The last time she joined the Thursday night soccer league filled with cutthroat mothers, she had been given a red card for bodychecking an opponent. Those poor kids on the soccer field here in town. Even though I didn’t inherit any of her killer instinct on the field, I was about to volunteer for soccer duty until Quattro placed a hand on my arm and drew me away from the crowd.
“No one in the press is covering what’s happening here,” he said in a low voice, gesturing to the disarray around us. “That’s why there’s no aid coming. No one knows, and no one cares. But you know. The right photograph can make all the difference.”
But Dom had told me that only videos could make a difference these days. And that’s what I said now: “A video would be better.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Quattro said. “My mom used to do a ton of development work for nonprofits.” The last time Quattro had talked about his mom, he had shut down on me. I waited for a repeat performance. Instead, he continued, “She was all about the visuals helping with fund-raising. Video or photography, I’m not sure what’s more important so long as you’re telling a story. We’ve got to activate people into doing something about all this.”
That rang true. How many times had I heard Mom talking about “visual narratives” when she prepped for meetings with her clients—telling executives that one iconic image could create a lasting impression. Could communicate information more effectively than even their words.
“Where’d I post it?” I asked.
“CNN.”
“Please.” I shook my head, calculating the minuscule chances of that ever happening.
“They show photographs from citizen journalists. That could be you. But it’s your decision.” With one last shrug, Quattro said, “I heard entire villages have been washed away. People have died.”
The image of people trapped in their demolished homes dampened my objections until nothing but the truth was left: If a photograph might possibly help, I literally had to give it a shot.