Why My Photo From Guinea Sparked a Soccer Star’s Search for One Boy

I recently took a photo of a classroom in a small, remote village in Guinea where the first case in the West African Ebola outbreak occurred. I was focused on the young children learning French. I barely noticed what they were wearing when I later posted the photo on Instagram.

2: Would love to give him my latest shirt. Great photo of what looks to be a great project!! pic.twitter.com/lSfGMCm97y

— Dries Mertens (@dries_mertens14) March 25, 2015

But Dries Mertens noticed. Mertens is an internationally renowned Belgian soccer star. And he was struck at seeing one of the young boys in the photo wearing a t-shirt with his name and number on the back.

So Mertens reached out to me on Twitter

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