It is 1972 and Alicia Talbot, a Vietnam war widow with a two-year-old son, has traveled to the poor, mostly illiterate nation of Botswana to teach English. At the nearby border, civil war roils Rhodesia. Alicia’s remote school harbors a saboteur, someone runs guns to Rhodesian guerrillas, and students sense the rising tension. Alicia falls for a new teacher, Jake Hunter, but just when romance seems possible, the sunbaked Kalahari Desert and guerrilla warfare threaten all she loves.