By: Phoebe Canagarajah

The pungent smell of fish in the hazy sun, combined with the unique scents of those crowding around you, overtake your senses. You swivel your head around to find the rest of your group, trying to avoid looking at the stacks of fish swarmed by flies or the arranged piles of chicken feet. You watch your footing as you gingerly maneuver around low-rimmed baskets of onions and cassava leaves as your white sneakers become tinted by the red clay underfoot. Welcome to market, the hub of daily Sierra Leonean life! Looking past the hectic and overpowering scene before you, you see the beauty and serenity of the country—it’s large palm trees and green mountains, their vibrancy both breathtaking and surprising. You didn’t expect Africa to be like this.

As a Liberal Arts student, I had the honor to live and work around the city of Makeni in Sierra Leone for over two weeks this past June as part of Penn State’s HESE program. Most of my time was spent visiting markets and talking to households (generally head female figures), conducting research on general nutrition.

The Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship program at Penn State—commonly shortened to HESE—is a program for students from all disciplines interested in development to gain knowledge and hands-on experience. Last spring semester, my peers and I learned about social entrepreneurship and worked on research projects to be carried out over the summer field experience. Our research was closely tied to the venture we’re trying to develop, GRO Greenhouses. Sierra Leone has the highest rainfall in Africa, yet most of its population is malnourished. Taking advantage of the natural resources in effort to solve a need, GRO is committed to sustainably providing affordable greenhouses to responsible shareholders in order to provide communities with better seasonal nutrition. To this end, my research partner and I conducted a baseline study on common foods the general population ate to discover why malnourishment was an issue and to specify foods that would be needed and profitable to grow in greenhouses. This semester, we are writing a paper using this data in effort to get published and add to the body of literature about Sierra Leone.

Being able to qualitatively research households and build relationships was a rewarding, albeit demanding, experience. While initially exhausting, visiting homes and observing families’ lifestyles and experiences carried their own sense of adventure. My time in Sierra Leone would not have been as rich had I been unable to so immerse myself in Sierra Leonean daily life. I came away from Sierra Leone with an understanding of the lifestyle, a respect for the people and an enjoyment of their culture.