In Dar es Salaam in the late 1980s, a retired school teacher named Pius Fernandes was given an English language diary by one of his former students Feroz, now a shopkeeper.

Initially enraged at the thought that Mariamu was not a virgin when they married, he gradually grows to accept and love her.

Meanwhile, World War I has reached the small town of Kikono and Pipa is enlisted as a messenger, first by Corbin on behalf of the English and later by the Germans.

After being arrested by the English as a messenger for the Germans Pipa returns home only to find that Mariamu has been raped and murdered.

Immigrating from India to Dar es Salaam in the early 1950s, Fernandes teaches at a boys' school.

Eventually, he is forced to also teach at the inferior girls school where he becomes infatuated with a teenager named Rita.