Malabo and five other men travel to Bezam to demand government help and are never seen again.

Konga steals the car keys of three Pexton representatives at the village meeting, trapping them as hostages.

Bongo travels to Bezam and meets journalist Austin, persuading him to write about Kosawa's plight.

Kumbum, the Pexton hostage, dies of illness before the village's memory-wiping plan can be carried out.

Nine armed soldiers arrive at Kumbum's funeral and open fire, killing twelve villagers in a massacre.

Soldiers arrest Bongo, Lusaka, Konga, and Woja Beki and take them as prisoners to the capital.

Austin's article exposing Pexton's destruction of Kosawa is published in an American newspaper.

The Restoration Movement, an NGO, arrives in Kosawa with money and promises of education and change.

The Restoration Movement reports that the four prisoners have been executed and buried in a secret location.

The Restoration Movement selects Thula to attend college in the United States.

Thula returns to Kosawa after years abroad, convinced the real enemy is the country's dictator.

Liberation Day is held at the school in Lokunja, where Thula leads a crowd in a call-and-response rally.

Kosawa's lawsuit against Pexton fails, and Pexton countersues the village to recover its own legal costs.

The Five kidnap overseer Mr. Fish and his wife, and a government rescue operation ends in a deadly explosion.

His Excellency declares Kosawa uninhabitable and orders the entire village burned to the ground.

Kosawa's fight against the American oil company Pexton begins when Thula's father Malabo and five other men travel to the capital demanding help and are never seen again. The village outcast Konga sparks a rebellion by trapping Pexton officials as hostages, and villagers send men to the capital to find a journalist named Austin who can bring their story to America. A government massacre follows, and four villagers are arrested and later executed, while Austin's published article draws a foreign NGO that eventually sends Thula to study in the United States. Thula returns years later with a plan to overthrow the country's dictator and organizes Liberation Day, but the government dismisses the movement as harmless. A final hostage crisis engineered by Thula's friends ends in a fatal explosion that kills Thula and the others. His Excellency burns Kosawa to the ground, ending the village's decades-long fight for justice.

The rise and fall of Kosawa's revolution against Pexton.

The government secretly signs Kosawa's land over to Pexton, promising villagers prosperity that never materializes.

Konga spits at the Leader's feet and then spits in Woja Beki's face in front of the assembled village.

Thula's brother Juba nearly dies from a disease caused by Pexton's contamination of Kosawa's water supply.

Sahel delivers a stillborn child after Malabo disappears, overwhelmed by grief and self-blame.

Woja Beki lies to two government soldiers who arrive in Kosawa asking about the missing Pexton officials.

Thula refuses to eat until her mother Sahel agrees to let her attend school in Lokunja.

Thula and Austin begin spending time together at activist meetings in the United States.

Thula's friends in Kosawa begin setting fires and destroying Pexton property around the village.

Three of Thula's friends are falsely accused and imprisoned for an attack on a Pexton laborer.

The Restoration Movement takes Pexton to court; Pexton agrees to terms but breaks the agreement afterward.

Thula takes a government teaching job in Bezam to covertly mobilize students against the regime.

One of the friends' children dies; the grieving father retaliates by shooting three Pexton laborers.

Village men kill twelve soldiers and government workers in retaliation for ongoing violence against Kosawa.

Sahel breaks with tradition and remarries, ending years of enforced widowhood.

Pexton creates a scholarship in the Fishes' honor and drills a new oil well in Kosawa's former village square.

Long before the central uprising, Pexton's arrival in Kosawa—enabled by a corrupt government deal—poisons the village's water supply and begins killing its children, accumulating personal tragedies that shape every character. Woja Beki's complicity is tested when he must choose between protecting his position and protecting the village, while Thula stages a hunger strike to win her right to an education. As diplomatic efforts collapse, Thula's friends turn to property destruction and eventually lethal violence, and three of them are falsely imprisoned in retaliation. A legal case against Pexton briefly yields a settlement that Pexton then breaks, and a cycle of killings between villagers and soldiers escalates the crisis beyond recovery. After the destruction of Kosawa, the survivors scatter, cultural traditions fade, and Pexton marks its victory by drilling a new oil well in the ruins of the village square.

The lives and losses that fueled Kosawa's long fight.

Lusaka proposes housing and feeding the Pexton hostages until they name a helpful contact in Bezam.

Kumbum tells Bongo that his nephew Austin is an American journalist who can bring Kosawa's story abroad.

Kosawa's villagers swear a collective oath on a ceremonial umbilical cord bundle to keep the hostage situation secret.

The village healer Sakani refuses to treat Kumbum's worsening illness, allowing the Pexton hostage to die.

Thula does not speak for eleven days following the soldiers' massacre of villagers.

The Restoration Movement sets up a bus to take Kosawa's children to school in nearby Lokunja.

Thula writes to her friends about a veteran activist who burned a government building and remained proud of it.

The Restoration Movement advises the people of Kosawa to become friendly and make peace with Pexton.

Yaya learns from a relative that Big Papa was sexually abused as a child and silenced by his family.

Thula cuts ties with the Restoration Movement after discovering the organization is nearly out of funding.

Thula gives her friends money to purchase guns, insisting they be used only in emergencies.

The reincarnated twins abduct and sexually assault Thula in a ritual meant to make her a more acceptable leader.

After Thula's pregnancy becomes visible, villagers who had doubted her begin to take her leadership seriously.

His Excellency is finally forced to hold a national election after years of sustained pressure.

The twins confess to assaulting Thula, and villagers wonder whether her unborn child would have been their savior.

The hostage plan takes shape through Lusaka's proposal and Kumbum's revelation about journalist Austin, while the village binds itself to secrecy through a collective oath on a ceremonial umbilical cord bundle. The healer Sakani's refusal to treat Kumbum sets off a chain of consequences, and the subsequent massacre leaves Thula mute for eleven days. Abroad, Thula absorbs new ideas about direct resistance but grows disillusioned with the Restoration Movement's timidity, eventually arming her friends and returning home to lead. The reincarnated twins' brutal assault on Thula—intended to legitimize her leadership through forced pregnancy—marks one of the novel's most disturbing turning points, yet it does cause villagers to take her seriously. Despite her growing influence, the revolution ends in an explosion, and the twins' confession raises unanswerable questions about what Thula's unborn child might have meant for Kosawa's survival.