The location is a crossing of roads leading from Uganda into Tanzania and from Kenya via Rwanda to Zaire. Some years ago, Mama Shillingi started her "hotelli" at the crossroads. She offered food and shelter to truck drivers. That is, until 1994, when thousands of dead bodies came floating down the nearby Kagera river. Shortly thereafter, the refugees came across the border. Within days, half a million people had settled there. Around a hamlet of four houses, a boom town arose called Benaco.

Crossroads tells the story of some of the original inhabitants and how Mama Shillingi's business thrived. But there was also the fear of the refugees. Had not a large number of her new neighbors partaken in murder ... in Rwanda? The local judge, who sees his tasks multiplied by ten. With the certainty that the often insignificant misdemeanors of the suspects in his courtroom actually amount to nothing, when compared with the horrendous crimes committed. The insurance agent has another view on the arrival of the refugees and relief workers: the more development, the more accidents, and so the need to take out insurance rises ... .

With shocking simplicity, they and the other inhabitants sketch a moving picture of the sudden changes in their lives at the crossroads, without knowing how things would develop.

And how it further went, we now know: at the end of 1996, the refugees from Rwanda were world news again: scenes of almost endless streams of people, now on their way back home. After two years, Benaco is once again what it used to be, a desolated crossing of roads. A barren spot in the large green savannah.