Having run from her family and her tribe following a painfully traumatic ceremony of womanhood, Ngwamba Mae finds herself establishing a new "tribe" in New York City with the friends from around the globe who know her as Mae Mae. Afraid of losing these new connections in her life, Mae Mae struggles with the realities of her sexual awakening as well as the possibility of putting her job as a cleaning woman behind her as both her own eyes and the options around her open as wide as her hunger for life is deep.