I made Owadwa to offer a nuanced portrait of what it means to be African today, through one family’s experience. In their home, love and duty collide with personal longing, silence, and cultural expectation. The story is rooted in realities I know: the invisible labor of caregiving, the aftermath of a mother’s chronic depression, and my childhood proximity to a family raising a son on the autism spectrum. Grounded in language, costume, and community from western Kenya, I wanted authenticity that honors our contradictions—family as refuge and as weight—and invites conversations about neurodiversity and intergenerational trauma.