Welcome to the Other Side: A Peek into Lives that Keep Going
- Augusta Bangura
- Aug 20
- 2 min read
By: Augusta Osmatu Bangura
Meet Mathilda Conteh, a 45-year-old market trader at Kroo Town Road Market in Freetown.
She’s known for her quick hands, generous smile, and selling cassava and potato leaves, a trade she’s carried on since she was 12.
But before her story, consider this:
For many, the rainy season is cozy. It’s warm blankets, the soothing rhythm of raindrops on rooftops, the perfect excuse to rest indoors.
Now, come to Mathilda’s world.
For her and countless other market women in Sierra Leone, the rains mean something else entirely: flooding, muddy streets, leaky umbrellas, and long hours waiting for customers who never come.
She has no canopy, no safe stall, just a wooden table and her will to endure.
Her earnings slow to a trickle. But the needs don’t. She’s raising three children alone—one of them a student at Fourah Bay College. That’s no small feat. That’s the product of years of grit and sacrifice, years of waking early, years of sweating from the brows.
The contrast is stark: while some enjoy the season's comfort, others battle through it to survive.
Yet Mathilda endures, not out of luxury, but out of love.
Her life is not just about selling leave, it’s about legacy.
Her story is of thousands of women in Sierra Leone who keep pushing, hoping, and building futures even when the skies open against them.
They are the backbone of our communities. And every time they brave the rain, they carry more than produce. They’re carrying dreams, for their children, and for a better tomorrow.
So there, this is the other side of the rainy season. It's the side we see but rarely notice, so usual that it's become a norm. We overlook it, assuming it's ordinary, but it's anything but.
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