When Meka first sees the swarms of refugees returning from the North, he decides to run away from home and school, join the Bala army and the effort to defend his people, and save them from massacre. In the name of idealism he becomes a child recruit believing he is commiting a heroic and patriotic act, and is celebrated as such by his peers. But he does not reckon with the realities of war - the abuse, the disipline and the lack of personal freedom, and the killings.