In 2014, my wife spent nine months in West Africa on the front lines of the Ebola response. She lead a surveillance team trying to identify “contacts,” who are persons who may have come into contact with an infected person. The man in this painting was among these “contacts.” He and several others from a small village in rural Sierra Leone had direct contact with a boy who became infected with Ebola and died. He knew the boy since his birth and wrapped the boy’s body before burial. This is the moment when he learned that his act of love and respect put him in danger of Ebola. This is the moment when he learned that he was now a “contact,” and for the next 21 days, a stranger would visit him each day to look for signs of the disease that had already killed thousands in his country. This is Contact Tracing and one of the most critical elements to stem the tide of an epidemic.