Two years teaching in Africa! A new PhD envisions an exciting start to his career and soon sees his training has given little preparation for the experience.

How much can a modest young American on his own help in an unfamiliar country? Bretton must set his goals low but he hopes to leave some legacy of his time overseas. He struggles to understand the agricultural college where he is teaching in Lesotho while apartheid rages in neighboring South Africa.

When Bretton returns many years later, he is less modest, less naive and less ambitious, but still troubled by a crisis no one but he remembers.