By the last half of the 1980s, when this film was made, Nicaragua's populist revolution was under siege in a big way by the American-funded Contras, people whose financial or political interests were not served by the revolution's home-grown (apparently non-communist) democratization and land-reform efforts, served up liberally spiced with communist rhetoric. This film, the first produced in Nicaragua (with the help of Cuba), is evidently an attempt to shore up the wilting spirit of the people's movement. In the story, Paulina, a villager living in the Jalpa region between Nicaragua and Honduras, is commenting on the events she observes. First, her village comes under attack by the Contras and her father is killed. Even though everyone has fled into the jungle, she returns to the village to harvest some corn and organizes the women to leave their refugee camp for a new home. Eventually, as so few men are around, the women become more and more self-sufficient, and when a few men return, they find that their women are not quite so ready to do their bidding.
