AllMovie

This delightful Kenyan comedy tells the story of a free-spirited, strong-willed feminist who defies social convention and leaves her abusive husband. Mumbi was purchased by her husband Mwangi. He paid a high price and figured that gave him the right to regularly beat her. After many years, Mumbi has had enough, grabs her prepubescent daughter, and leaves Nairobi for her home village. There she goes to the home of her father who is at first upset. Also upset are the gossipy old hens at the village Christian Women's Union, who think any woman who cannot make her marriage work is a prostitute. Plucky Mumbi pays them no mind and becomes a barmaid in the town tavern. This infuriates the uppity, prim women even more. The town biddies get even more upset when the other villagers resist their petitions to have the giant Mugmo tree, a tree that has stood since before the Christians arrived, destroyed because most of the villagers secretly believe the tree still holds magical, mythological powers.