A high school student returns to his hometown to bury his father who died as a result of AIDS. He cannot afford to return to his studies, so he stays to teach in a one-room primary school when the original teacher becomes too sick to teach. The town cannot afford to pay his wages, so he is given a milk cow as payment. The cow turns out to be sickly, and, though the students excel, there is not enough money to repair the badly damaged classroom. AIDS, Christianity, and corruption in the local government figure prominently in this tragic story.
