Ten-year-old Thembi and her eight-year-old brother, Khwezi, are left alone in their rural homestead when their mother dies. All they have to remember their mother by is a grass mat she wove, which she aimed to enter in a craft competition. Thembi decides to take the mat to the competition herself, and Khwezi reluctantly goes with her. nIn the city, the children are taken up by the street-wise Chili-Bite and his gang. A man claiming to be a priest offers to help them, but he turns out to be a pimp who wishes to sell Thembi's virginity as a cure for Aids. When her bond with Khwezi is broken, Thembi succumbs to the grief that has been welling up inside her since her mother's death. Alone, Thembi must discover herself and her dreams, before she can be reconciled with her brother and her newfound friends.