"Panama, 1907: It is said that the Canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. At a railroad station next to the thundering excavation zone, a young Panamanian canal digger named Omar collapses. For a quiet local boy to take this job was a shocking decision -- especially to his father, a fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of their country. Only one person comes to Omar's aid: a teenaged girl named Ada, newly arrived from Barbados alongside thousands of other West Indian people seeking work. Carefree by nature, she must roll up her sleeves and quickly find a job to send money home for her sleeng sister's medical treatment."--