About a year after a youngster, Andayi Mushenye, living in Western Kenya, clings to life through a
gruesome uvulectomy and tonsillectomy without anesthesia, he wakes in the wee hours of the night to
discover his brother Rono has disappeared. He hears commotions and, upon waking up, finds his uncles
are counseling him tensely. Since his father died a few years prior, the presence of his uncles in the wee
hours eating chicken, the chicken dish that signifies a big event, is the tip that needs to know something
big is about to happen. Upon inquiry, he discovers his brother is about to be taken for circumcision, a rite
of passage. Unfortunately, he is informed he is too young to endure the bloodletting ritual performed
deep into the ancestral forest.

However, an impatient Andayi cannot wait to become a man. Right before dawn, he escapes home,
barely survives a puff adder attack, gets apprehended, and frogmarched deep into the jungle. He gets
stripped of his childhood clothes and joins the queue, and in no time, he hears his brother’s harrowing
screams. Shaken and naked, he steps over to look and, for the first time, discovers what he is about to
face next: a bloody circumcision without any anesthetic. Despite his pleadings and fierce resistance, he is
tumbled and held to the ground, where he undergoes the gruesome rite. Before the hemorrhaging
stops, Andayi and the cohort are shuffled away to stay in a secluded hut deeper into the forest to face
spine-chilling excursions and dangerous expeditions that will instill the bravery needed to become men.
Led by elders, the cohort starts the healing process by learning hygiene, identifying medicinal plants,
survival skills in the wild, character-building drills, tribal history, expectations, and requirements of
manhood. Barely healed, the group participates in menacing fights, dangerous expeditions, and
spine-chilling excursions in the wild darkness to test their quest for manhood. He barely survives, and
the newest cohort of boys-to-men heads out of the seclusion, singing and dancing wildly into the joyous
welcome of the whole village.

After induction into adulthood with a momentous ceremony of his life, impatient Andayi is ready to
begin his life as a young adult and indulges recklessly. Shortly afterward, he is sent away to Chavakali
Boys High School, a boarding school. However, he becomes a rebel student. He does not study, cajoles
and bullies others, and takes no interest in succeeding at his work.

He and his mother proceed to the principal’s office on the day of his exam results. She is naïve and
believes he has possibly done well. She is crushed by what the principal says. Andayi has failed
spectacularly. But, while his mother is furious, her disappointment is most difficult for Andayi to accept.
She surprises Andayi by telling him that she knows he can do better and succeed in life. In the following
weeks, she travels around to many high schools until she finds one that will allow him to attend and resit
his exams. Eventually, one agrees, the Malava High School.

Andayi is determined to make a better effort at this second chance. But almost immediately, he faces
another setback when he visits his sweetheart, Ketsy, who has passed high school and is in a college
preparatory program. He finds her there, but she rebuffs and dumps him. Crushed, Andayi heads back to
Malava High School. As he journeys throughout the night, he steels himself to use this heartbreak to
drive him forward. At Malava, a high school with meager resources, he studies hard. When his mother
and Andayi proceed to the principal’s office on results day, a beaming principal informs her that her son
has triumphed in his exams. Immensely proud of him, she takes him for a vacation in the capital, Nairobi,
to celebrate. He encounters many wonders he has not experienced or seen, such as traffic lights, ice
cream, a hotel room, mannequins in display windows, huge skyscrapers, and terrifying elevators.

Even after passing the High School exams, Andayi faces another setback. He cannot obtain a university
admission because they only admit the top .5% of academic performers due to the lack of universities.
Feeling betrayed, he takes a teaching job earning forty dollars a month, but Andayi dreams of more.
During the ten-mile daily commute on foot, he develops the idea of going to the United States of
America to attend university. He begins by writing to universities in the United States. The initial
explorations are positive, but he soon faces an impossible financial hurdle. The university requires him to
present evidence to show how he can pay the fees, which will cost thousands of dollars in tuition,
housing, and living expenses.

Still determined as ever, a daring plan comes to him. One of his father’s friends is a wealthy man named
Ibrahim. Andayi effectively sneaks into the mansion, locates Ibrahim’s office, plucks up his courage, and
explains the help he is seeking. His daring action pays off, and Ibrahim provides him with some bank
statements that he can use to apply to the university in the United States. A few weeks later, his scheme
comes to fruition, and he receives a letter of admission to Eastern Michigan University.

But wait, there is another problem. While Andayi believes that he will be able to finance his life in
America when he gets there, he must get there first, and that too will require real money for an air ticket
and first-term tuition; he has none. He reveals his plans to a local politician, and a successful fundraiser is
quickly organized. On the last day in the village and flushed with all that money, nervous Andayi
experiences flashbacks of a violent robbery in the home in the wee hours of the night a few months ago.
But he goes to sleep knowing his uncles, armed with machetes, have camped in the home to ensure no
robbery happens.

After the grandmother’s traditional blessings are finalized, the family heads for Nairobi for Jomo
Kenyatta International Airport. Upon purchasing an air ticket, a banker’s check for tuition, and final
preparations on the last night, ghostlike apprehension clutches Andayi at his throat when it hits him that
his flight to America includes being locked up in a plane and suspended in the sky with nothing beneath
them to catch it if it falls out of the clouds. The fear of getting reduced to ashes in a plane crash inferno
overwhelms him. But he cannot tell his highly superstitious mother, who can call the trip off and order
everyone back to the village to cleanse the lurking evil spirits before flying out. In a few hours, he knows
he has survived the night of prayers, sweats, and worries when the ruckus and rumpus of inner city
traffic awaken him.

At the airport departure lounge, he says a tearful goodbye to his family and friends, especially his
mother. In this touching moment, we learn that Andayi is the youngest of her four children. He is about
to leave his widowed mother alone in an empty nest. Teary and nervous, he gathers the courage when
his flight number is announced, ready to board.

From boarding to arrival, Andayi experiences hilarious technological challenges and cultural
misunderstandings during the flight. Over an eight-hour layover in London, he is too afraid to move
around, lest the plane leaves him and he stays put for eight hours. On the last leg, he has dinner and
whisky, and as he begins to doze off, Andayi remembers the first impressions he had of America he saw
from the open-air movies in the village. Now he is on the final leg; he passes out, wondering how the
star-spangled land would look like when he touches down; little does he know he is about to be knocked
up and down, back–to–back.