Ama, a Ghanaian woman born in 1940 near Kumasi during British colonial rule over the Gold Coast, grows up witnessing the exploitation of cocoa farms, missionary influence, and growing resistance that leads to Ghana's independence in 1957. Frustrated, she decided to not listen and learn from the westerners even when education was made available to slaves and non slaves.
 
Economic hardship in post-independence Ghana—famine, inflation, and political instability—forces the family to migrate to Nigeria in 1975 during its oil boom. In Lagos, Ama works as a market trader selling produce.
 
Tensions rise as Nigeria's economy falters in the early 1980s after the oil price crash, leading to high unemployment. In January 1983, President Shehu Shagari issues an executive order expelling undocumented migrants, targeting over two million West Africans (about one million Ghanaians)