Gary Stokes, a young American from California, accepts a job that takes him to East Africa, a place he never imagined calling home. Loneliness confronts him as he struggles to understand his new, postcolonial environment and his role as an expatriate reporting in a foreign land. Gary, who promises his girlfriend in the U.S. that he will never let anything come between them, finds himself falling in love with a Kenyan native and relying on the help of Guy Woodward, his new expatriate friend, to help him navigate his way through the complicated love triangle.