Portfolio
The Photo Board
by Dave Snyder ’92
 As
a media relations adviser with Catholic Relief Services, David
Snyder ’92 travels the globe wherever disaster strikes.
Immediately after the tsunamis hit in Southeast Asia, he was
in India as part of the CRS response there. He sent us this
account of one December day in India, as the death tolls first
began to mount. David is now working in Sri Lanka, where relief
efforts continue.
THEY HAVE POSTED PHOTOS of the dead in the church at Vailankani.
Every morning, dazed residents shuffle past to scan the faces
of the victims, searching for loved ones lost first to the sea,
and then again to the mass burials that followed.
There are no names for Vailankani’s dead. Their faces
stare back from square wooden boards, each labeled only by number.
Photo 188 is a young man in a yellow checked shirt. Photo 56
is a girl with short cropped, tomboy hair. In all, there are
194 photos on the wall here.
As I stand watching, a woman in a pink scarf approaches and
tugs at my arm. Without a word, she directs me to photo 89—third
column over, third row from the bottom. She thrusts a black
and white passport photo into my hand, looks into my eyes, and
bursts into sobs. She has just found her husband among the faces
on the wall.
A crowd gathers silently around her tears. She points again,
 disbelieving,
to the small passport photo—a wiry young man with a neatly
trimmed mustache—and opens her hands in supplication.
I step back unconsciously, uncertain of what’s expected
of me. The woman is absorbed back into the crowd, and I take
the chance to look carefully at photo 89. It is a man with sand
caked hair, his head slightly turned, his face deeply bruised
and graying. I can’t be certain, but the likeness is there,
as much as the dead can resemble the living. I stare for a long
moment, hoping I’m wrong. But my eyes answer the woman
in the scarf when she emerges to take the photo from my hand.
Her tears attract a priest, then a policeman in a dull green
uniform. She offers the passport photo to him, and stands back
to  await
his judgment. For a moment, the tears stop. Not trusting herself,
she has pinned everything on this final verdict. Stepping into
his role, the policeman leans down to photo 89 and holds the
black and white photo close. Those who had gathered turn their
faces to the board and return, one by one, to their own private
searches. The woman in the scarf seems horribly alone to me.
The policeman turns and slips the passport photo into her trembling
hands. Her eyes are welded to his. He nods and takes her arm,
and turns to consult with the priest in charge of the picture
boards. That is her answer. I watch as the weight falls almost
visibly upon her. Then, she turns again to me, her pink scarf
wet now with tears, and holds the photo up slowly, as if I who
know nothing of such pain can assuage her anguish, as if only
a stranger could lift this grief from her. I can say nothing
as she is led gently from the hall. Behind her, the crowd closes
in again on the photos of the dead.
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