With a rewarding career as a third grade teacher, a near flawless husband, and the perfect house in the suburbs of Toronto, thirty-three-year-old Nicky Fowler thought her whole life was mapped out. But when she and her husband, Eric, experience complicated fertility issues that ultimately lead to a devastating tragedy, their marriage crumbles and Nicky is left with unimaginable pain and the inability to cope with daily activities in her ever-changed life. Desperate to flee the pain of her existing world, Nicky accepts a volunteer teaching position at Kidaai, an orphanage in Ngong, Kenya. Nicky soon finds that life in Africa is harder than she was expecting; drought has forced the country into famine, the air is filled with the neverending stench of burned garbage smoke, and violence is everywhere. Worst of all, Nicky learns that Jebet, the jaded orphanage director who lost her family in the post-election violence of 2007, takes her hatred for the world out on the orphans. Crushed by both her past and the realization of what life is like in Africa, Nicky turns to Mama Bu, her inspiring host mother who continually provides perspective over cups of Kenyas signature drink, chai tea. In time, Nicky realizes that she must do much more than teach the children of Kidaai she needs to save them.
