Sergio travels to a metropolis in West Africa to work for an NGO as an environmental engineer on a road project between the desert and the forest. There, he becomes entangled in an intimate yet unbalanced relationship with two inhabitants of the city, Diara and Gui. As neo-colonial dynamics among the expatriate community unravel, this fragile bond becomes his only refuge from an impending collapse into solitude or barbarism.

One night, a group of workers realises that the administration is stealing machines and raw materials from their own factory. As they organize to survey the equipment and block the relocation of production, they are forced to stand at their posts with no work to do, as a form of retaliation, while negotiations over general lay-offs take place. The pressure leads to a breakdown of the workers along with the world around them.