Meet Ishmael Rosenberg Teshale, the Boston-born and Tel Aviv-raised offspring of an Ethiopian Jewish father and White American mother. This brilliant, impulsive young man experiences a new world when he moves to Ottawa, Ontario. Enrolling in the civil engineering program at Carleton University, Ishmael falls for his tutor Isabel Hamid, a beautiful and headstrong young Lebanese Christian woman. With differences in race, religion and culture getting in the way, as well as constant ego clashes, do they stand a chance together ?