Alma is a nine year old girl living in an urban environment in the U.S.. When she loses her mother, she has to travel to her grandmother Esperanza in an indigenous village in Mexico.
Soledad, a traditional healer, lives with her grandson Jose in an Indigenous Village. Soledad's daughter, Adela, moved to Mexico City many years ago and now wants Jose to join her, but Soledad believes the boy is better off in the village.
During the ceremony to change the authorities in an indigenous town, where a council of elders passes leadership to a new council made up of younger men, all the money of the town is counted publicly. The next day, the treasury is empty: Who stole the money?
A young Indigenous boy imagines his future while listening to the sounds of a seashell, while an Indigenous man recalls his past listening to the same shell.