Teenager Mukai spends most of the year in a remote Kyrgyz village with his grandmother while his parents work in a secluded mountain area. At thirteen, he is considered an adult by local standards. Mukai helps adults with logging, visits his father in the mountains, takes his grandmother to Lake Issyk-Kul where she first met Mukai's grandfather, herds horses to the dock, and interacts with city visitors at the lake.