On returning from Burkina Faso, Patricia shows her writer friend her travel snaps. The picture of two children who silently approach tourists with a tomato can round their necks and a smile on their faces spurs the writer on to create a story with one of them, Essein, as the main character. In her fiction, Essein is now an adult who returns to his village after working abroad in a cocoa plantation. There he met Ramala, a young woman who serves the overseer of the plantation and bears his mistreatment. Together, fearful, they undertake the journey back to their native land and begin a new life, integrated into village activities.