Happiness is always topmost of my mind. Whenever I arrive in a new place, the key question I ask is: how happy are the people here?

Following that comes another question: what might I learn about being happy? And perhaps even more importantly, how might I contribute?

There is always the hope that when I leave the place, it will be a little happier than how I found it.

Not in a Happy Place

By almost any metric, where I have recently moved to, Sierra Leone, is not a happy place.

In the latest World Happiness Report, people are asked to imagine a ladder and rate where they stand on it from zero to ten, where zero represents the worst possible life and ten the best possible life. On average, Sierra Leoneans score 3.3, ranking 146th out of the 147 countries that were surveyed.

According to the Gallup World Poll in 2022, only 32% of Sierra Leoneans said they enjoyed themselves the previous day, compared with a global average of 68%. Whilst 64% of Sierra Leoneans at least smiled the previous day, this too lags behind the global average of 72%.

And things do not appear to be improving. Happiness has declined over the past decade. The devastating Ebola virus disease between 2014 and 2016, persistent macroeconomic instability, and ongoing governance issues have all played their part.

Yet, one shudders to think how Sierra Leoneans must have felt during the country’s brutal civil war in the 1990s and early 2000s. While happiness today must surely be higher than it was then, the traumas of that period do not simply disappear. Some wounds never fully heal.

And so, I find myself asking a simple but daunting question:

What could I possibly do for happiness here?

Early Reflections

Statistics can tell us something about happiness, but they cannot tell us what it feels like for the average person to live here day to day. Numbers cannot capture everyday encounters – the greetings, the frustrations glimpsed in a passing look, the moments of warmth or distance. Nor do they tell me what role, if any, I might play in making things a little better.

One early lesson has been about recognition.

People see me – that much is certain. I stand out wherever I walk. But do I truly see the people around me?

In Sierra Leone, greetings matter. Saying hello, asking someone’s name, remembering it the next time you meet — these small acts can carry weight. They signal recognition, appreciation, and respect.

Sometimes the response is warm. At other times it is guarded, even suspicious. I understand why. I am a foreigner. Trust is not automatic.

But slowly, through repetition, a relationship might begin to form.

Another reflection sits with the shadow of extraction. And I recognise that this will make it difficult to create relationships where there is real balance.

This is a country where outsiders have long come to take things that were never theirs to take — minerals, labour, influence, knowledge. The legacy of that extraction is still visible. I see it in the imported luxury goods, in the foreign-owned establishments that quietly draw wealth out of local communities.

Arriving as a well-educated foreigner places me uncomfortably close to that tradition. It raises an uneasy question: how do I ensure that I am not simply another person taking more than I give?

Humility will be essential here – I have arrived with my ready-made explanations about why happiness here appears low – poverty, governance, economic instability. I know these things matter. Yet it would be presumptuous to think that after only a short time I could understand what life here truly feels like, nor know why things are as they are.

Happiness, like suffering, is deeply contextual. The people I meet carry histories I cannot see and experiences I will never fully share. I cannot presume to fully comprehend, and certainly not to judge. People do the best they can with what they have and what they know.

The most uncomfortable reflection is a personal one.

I have not been at my best since arriving here. Adjustment is harder than I expected. The heat, unfamiliar routines, and the sense of dislocation all take their toll.

Yet I am careful how I express this. My world remains a protected one. My basic needs are easily met. Compared with many around me, I live a deeply cushioned life.

Which raises another question.

How happy is it possible to be in a place where many others are struggling? Where I must acknowledge that a portion of my own comfort, and perhaps my happiness, comes from systems that benefit people like me more than others?

That is a deeper ethical question — one that we all need to confront.

In the meantime, I am holding onto smaller things: gratitude, generosity, and the quiet act of sharing moments of happiness with others.

After all, happiness rarely diminishes when it is shared, with the most beloved act of all being to help another feel a little happier in their life.