Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point. As a last resort, Tambudzai takes an ecotourism job that forces her to return to her parents' impoverished homestead. An act of betrayal reveals just how toxic the combination of colonialism and capitalism can be.

Sequel to Nervous conditions.