The white sport utility vehicle moved down a tarred road in Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone, when a group of men and youths, about seven or eight in all, ran up alongside the vehicle and started slapping at the roof and windows, trying to attract attention.
Inside, David Beckham smiled. Even here, in one of Africa's most benighted and impoverished countries, a land still reeling from a 10-year civil war that left 50,000 dead, the Galaxy and England soccer star could not go unrecognized.
A little farther down the road, Beckham asked the driver to stop.
Another group of men, a ragtag bunch wearing a rainbow of colors and costumes, were playing a soccer game on a dusty patch of roadside scrubland. Many of the players were bare-chested. Some were barefoot. The goals were makeshift. But the game was still soccer and Beckham wanted to join in.
For a while he did and a crowd gathered. Could one of the world's most recognizable athletes really be here, playing a pickup game with their friends and relatives? He was. Before leaving, Beckham stripped off his black UNICEF T-shirt and gave it to one of the players.
Since November, the Beckham world tour has taken him from Los Angeles to Vancouver, Sydney, Wellington, London, Freetown, Sao Paulo, Honolulu, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Dallas, New York and now Paris.
Today, Beckham is in Paris, where he is expected to play for England and earn his 100th cap in its friendly international match against France. On Thursday he will fly back to Los Angeles, and on Friday he and the rest of the Galaxy will fly to Denver for Saturday's Major League Soccer season opener against the Colorado Rapids.
Cynics would argue that Beckham's off-season tour is how it is with celebrities. They make a short trip into the Third World, put on a quick show of humanity for the cameras and then head home to Beverly Hills or wherever.
But Beckham said he felt genuine concern, particularly in Sierra Leone, when he gazed down at the tiny and half-starved infant cradled in his tattooed arms at a local malnutrition center, when he played with a toddler being weighed in a sling-like contraption and when he was shown around a malaria treatment center.
It was only a few days that Beckham spent in Sierra Leone as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in January, but it left its mark.
