After his parents drop him off at a boarding school in Kenya as a young boy, Clay crosses the threshold into an unknown and often-hostile world. Ox, the captain of the rugby team, rescues Clay from the paddling machine and becomes his mentor. Titch, a boy in his class who struggles to read, befriends Clay in his lonely days at boarding school. Clay develops a passion for rugby, which helps him carve out his niche wherever he finds himself-in Kenya as a child, in the apple country of Washington state as a junior high student, back in Kenya in high school, in a college in California, and finally in Sudan where he joins up with his friend Titch during a lull in that country's civil war.

"The Dust of Africa" is a story of a lasting friendship forged in shared struggles and joint exploits on the rugby fields in Kenya. Clay and Titch are forever marked by the land of their childhood, two young men who can't wash the dust of Africa off their feet.