We, The Untranslated

Abdulwasiu Abdulganiyy Olanrewaju

We are the echo between languages, names carried on tongues that no longer remember their weight. Our mothers taught us silence as survival, our fathers taught us laughter that hides the bruise. We walk through dust that once had kingdoms, and call it progress when the dust rises again. The moon knows our stories better than the census, It counts our ghosts more faithfully than our governments. Who are we, when our gods now scroll through timelines? Even the sacred now needs passwords. When our children baptize their dreams In Wi-Fi and war? We are the distance between memory and invention, half proverb, half password. Our laughter travels in the dialect of endurance, Our grief wears an agbada to church. In Kaduna's harmattan, our shadows speak Hausa. In Lagos rain, our hope smells of diesel and salt. We are still the river that refuses to dry, even when the sky forgets our name. Our bones are archives. Our scars are signatures. We are borrowed English dreaming in Hausa, broken Yoruba still humming home. We are markets and metaphors, noise and nostalgia, a continent of mirrors, smudged by history. Who are we? We are the question that keeps surviving. We are clay learning to forgive the fire, and flame forgiving the form. Our story is not finished, We write on wind and wall, line by line, with breath that refuses translation.

About Abdulwasiu Abdulganiyy Olanrewaju

Abdulwasiu Abdulganiyy Olanrewaju (born 31 July 2002) is a Nigerian medical student, writer, and emerging public intellectual whose work bridges science, storytelling, and social advocacy. A native of Igogo-Ekiti in Ekiti State, he spent his formative years in Bida, Niger State, before attending boarding school in Ilorin, Kwara State. He briefly studied at Bayero University, Kano, and later pursued his passion for medicine at the Federal University of Health Sciences, Azare, Bauchi State. Abdulwasiu developed a keen interest in writing from his secondary school days, cultivating a voice marked by clarity, depth, and emotional intelligence. Although he has not yet published formally, he has competed in numerous essay competitions and earned recognition in several of them. His writing frequently explores questions of health, identity, and human flourishing, reflecting his broader commitment to medicine, neurosurgery, and societal development.