"Now I must go back to squat in the sand with my people; I must get my water from roots and my food with a bow and arrow. But I am toothpaste now; I have been squeezed. I cannot go back in the tube." 1966. Koba, a young San girl, is being forcibly repatriated to the lands of the Kalahari desert. To survive she must find her tribe, but she fears she won't fit in after years of living among whites.
She flees across the South West African sandveld, evading her police guard and her enemy, André Marais, the man who murdered her parents, a vindictive Boer who is intent on killing her too for her love affair with his nephew. When she finds her drought-stricken people, she is feted for bringing them rain and for her beauty. Tribal tension grows as bachelors in the Ju/'hoansi tribe vie for the attention of the young stranger, but Koba yearns for her childhood sweetheart Mannie, from whom she was violently separated by the apartheid government.
When Koba discovers she is pregnant, convinced this is the result of her rape in prison, she aborts her foetus with the help of one of the tribal women, N!ai. Koba repays the woman's kindness with the yellow dress she's been wearing. Now jubilant in yellow, N!ai heads into town, only to become the victim of a hit-and-run driver. Behind the wheel is Koba's nemesis, André Marais, confident he has now killed Koba.
But Koba's sweetheart, Mannie, witnesses the murder. He has hitch-hiked across southern Africa to find her, desperate to see her before leaving for clandestine military training. Can he reach her in time to warn her of the danger she faces when André discovers his mistake?
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