'Don't let this place change you', says an old man when Sorrow arrives in the township of Chimuka. But Sorrow wants to change. He's come from a small village, he's going to stay with his uncle and he's starting at a new school — it's the start of a new life. But the people Sorrow meets and the things that happen to him in Chimuka change him in ways that he never imagined. He soon has to learn for himself what is right and what is wrong.