Lorato lives a comfortable but lonely life in her retirement years, alone in the home her husband had built in their rural village on the Kalahari in southern Africa. She becomes a grandmother when she adopts Lesedi after the death of a neighbour from HIV-related causes. Then six more children come into Lorato's care, four of whom are biological grandchildren, two more are adopted. Now primary caregiver for seven grandchildren, she struggles to feed them all, to teach them right from wrong, and traditional ways of life in a world shifting and modernizing. We see how AIDS as well as cultural changes disrupt traditional life when Lorato's son dies of the disease.