Christian lives a largely featureless life as a country veterinarian. Married, with no children, he and his wife have set up a small aid-to-Africa organization and he serves as its president. But that isn't enough to fill the monotony of his existence. So Christian spends his idle hours surfing the web. On the Internet he invents a second persona and flirts with a young African woman in search of a better life. Just idle flirting. Then, one day, Faustine, a 26-year-old from Burkina Faso, shows up at his office. "I have no papers," she tells him. "But you promised to marry me."