By Hassan I. Conteh

‘Kirrrrr-ing, kirrrr-ing,kirrr-ing, Kirrrr-ing !’ his itel ‘button phone’ was ringing loudly with persistent calls by patients and other clients almost from every parts of Sierra Leone while sitting on a wodden bench at his veranda.

He is a subscriber of Africell mobile company in Sierra Leone.

He gets his living as a herbalist and fortune teller.

In a tiny, not-well-known surburb of Kursly, there was a village imam (a lead Islamic prayer).

Orsheik is well-known by people around in Mangeh town.

Orsheik is easily  indentified with his village.

His name is often called along with the village name to help strangers to locate the place quite easily.

Kursly is about 3 miles from Mangeh town where life is better off for people.

Mangeh is a town between Konike Sanda chiefdom in Tonkolili district, north of Sierra Leone and a certain chiefdom in Koinadugu district.

The northern Temnes and the northern Korankos in Koinadugu district are separated by a long running river that connects many villages and surburbs.

People in surrounding villages of Koinadugu district usually come to Mangeh to recharge their phones or  buy ‘top up’ to fill their mobile phones.

Mangeh has a community centre and a primary school.

So, it is common to see children, girls and boys, from surrounding villages walking miles while going to school in Mangeh.

Mobile users in many other villages here are not enjoying quality telephone services since their phones are not connected to telephone poles.

However, mobile network is far better at Mangeh town than in places where there are no poles at all.

For instance, making a telephone call or receiving a call while at Kursly and Magborkoh villages is pretty difficult for one.

Sometimes, clients of Orsheik would have to walk up to the surburb’s outskirts to make phone calls.

I had witnessed a similar scenario while I was at Kursly for a cure.

That was around May 2017.

Usually, visitors and strangers alike are advised to go to a nearby village, Madina, to make important phone calls.

Since Madina sits on a red-earthen hill, mobile coverage is very easy to get there.

”You can sit anywhere and make a direct call,” the villagers would say to you.

These people at Madina are families traced by a paternal clan, Conteh.

So anyone, anywhere, who carries the surname, Conteh, is regarded by these people as one of their own.

On a next trip to Kursly for further cure, on June 17, 2021，I didn’t only make phone calls.

But I was able to  access the internet using my mobile phone then, itel S16, at Madina village.

That was an awesome experience for me.

I spent a month at Margborkoh village to get some herbal treatment for a prolonged illness that is believed to be caused by some evil doers.

Back home at Leicester Road in Freetown, my wife had to gauge suitable time preferably in the morning at 10:00 or 5:00 p.m. before she could phone me up to check on my welfare.

Often, she would do this to know if I was at a mobile coverage area.

It is like that for many other visitors in villages where telephone transmission poles are virtually non-existent.

In most cases, except when strangers would have to go up mountains or hills or stand at specially designated places to ring up family relatives and other people.

There are always lots of  challenges with mobile phone calls and internet in these remote communities.

Village people where telephone poles are not common are robbed off of today’s joy of telecommunications and internet age.

Like Orsheik, a many of the rural people are blacklisted from commenting on important governance issues about their country.

Poor mobile phone network and none access to the internet still represent growing setbacks to those living in deprived surburbs and villages in Sierra Leone.

At Kursly, Madina, Mangeh, Magborkoh villages like others, Chinese hand-held solar devices are used by village men and women to recharge their phones.

The devices are helping a lot.

Since villagers couldn’t afford to put up bulky solar equipment to power up their phones, they go in for the cheaper ones sold to them by some visiting traders.

Solar company trade  is thriving too in smaller towns in rural settings.

Easy Solar, a private company in Sierra Leone, has been reaching out hundreds  and hundreds of village people and the company is changing peoples’ lives .

It is giving them new meaning as villages get lit up at nights.

A village elder had bought an Easy solar energy light  charger at the cost of Le 2million (USD 100) around 2019.

It’s sad, in other aspects that, the villagers usually pay up at high costs to enjoy the services of Easy Solar.

They are  often trusted the Solar devices by the company’s agents  who are allowing the people to pay up by bits.

Payment is sometimes made flexible for the rural people since access to money is also a challenge.

Electricity challenge is also one that is making the lives of the poor in the rural to enjoy limited services.

Orsheik almost buys one solar chargeable device whenever he is called up by his customers outside his village, Kusly.

That is when he travels to urban towns.

”I forget to buy them( his children) a solar light upon my visit to Makeni, but I am very happy because one of my clients gave me his ‘button’ itel phone (manual keyboard phone )as a gift” he boasted.

To get news on the outcome of Sierra Leone’s Presidential elections, announced on June 27,2023, at exactly 4:42 p.m, we called the old man.

Orsheik’s phone rang several times but he hadn’t any credits on the phone to return a call.

From Waterloo, which is about 32 kilometers from the capital Freetown, I also did not have mobile top up left.

And it was raining heavily at the time at York Road in Waterloo.

But hours later, my wife and I managed to link up Orsheik again through phone to inform him of the Presidential winner of the just concluded elections held on June 24.

He answered without a strain on the line.

”Yes, I was told that the Pa (Julius Maada Bio is the winner again)…; We don’t have problem again with the network, so you can call us at anytime and you’ll be able to reach us at Kursly,” we talked and talked until my top up barely finishes.