Ashamed when he learns the truth of his ancestry, Hamalla elects to move away from Kabala, the village of his birth. Four years later, he returns to attempt to stop the spread of illness in Kabala by modernizing its sacred well. But Hamalla cannot achieve his goal alone, and finds love, support, and self-awareness in his quest. Chronicling tensions between traditional beliefs and expectations and contemporary practices, Assane Kouyaté shows that the necessity of accepting science and technology need not be mutually exclusive with the recognition of and respect for the power of traditional ways.