By George Kronnisanyon Werner (former Education Minister)
In Grand Cess, when a casket stops during a funeral walk, no one panics and no one turns back. The drums do not break their rhythm; the horns keep their trembling notes; the women continue singing. Instead, the community moves quietly toward the weight that has stalled. Men step forward, adjust their grips on the wooden box, and lift it again — not because it has become lighter, but because the journey must continue.
In Grand Cess, when something meant to carry us falters, the people simply carry it themselves.
That memory returned sharply this week as I watched the story of the President’s triumphant entry into Monrovia — and the quiet embarrassment that followed in Gbarnga.
When the President rode one of the new National Transit Authority buses down Broad Street, the city embraced him. No flags, no official decorations — just people. Cheering crowds lined the sidewalks, pressed against the decaying concrete that has surrendered to age. Kekehs slowed to a polite crawl. Taxi drivers leaned out of their windows to wave. Street vendors paused mid-sale as if holding the air steady for something hopeful to pass.
The trees along Broad Street — once proud guardians of the capital — stood wilted and thinning, their leaves giving way to a waning rainy season. Still green, but with signs of old age evident, starved by exhaust and years of neglect. Yet still, the people cheered. Thirty-plus buses rolled behind the President in tight formation, engines humming with the confidence of something new.
It was a beautiful sight — if you didn’t look too closely.
Because beauty in Liberia rarely has the strength to carry its own weight.
The following day in Gbarnga, one of those same buses broke down in front of the Administration Building. The engine died, and with it the enthusiasm. And suddenly, the very citizens who had walked miles to welcome their Head of State were pushing the bus meant to carry them.
It was the casket all over again.
The journey that began with applause in the capital ended with burden in the interior.
In Monrovia, the bus carried the President. In Bong County, the people carried the bus.
This painful symmetry reveals something deeper — a national condition that predates every administration and outlives every promise. Liberia is a country of low expectations and shrinking ambitions. We celebrate the arrival of buses in a republic that has existed since 1847. A nation older than Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, or almost any modern African state is applauding machinery that other countries take for granted.
We clap for the basics because we have been taught to expect nothing more.
This is what low expectations do to a people:
they shrink the horizon,
they normalize underperformance,
they turn ordinary items into national achievements.
The tragedy is not that we are happy — Liberians always find a way to rejoice. The tragedy is what we are happy about.
We cheer for arrivals even when those arrivals lack endurance.
We applaud announcements even when systems are missing.
We treat the bare minimum as a breakthrough because persistent failure has trained us to lower the bar.
How can a country that has survived for nearly two centuries — older than many democracies — still be surprised by its own basic functions? How does a nation that once imagined itself a continental example now gasp with gratitude at the sight of buses? How did a people who survived war, poverty, disease, and abandonment come to accept crumbs as full meals?
Because our leaders learned to offer little — and we learned to thank them for it.
Low expectations are both a survival strategy and a national affliction. They shield us from disappointment but imprison us in mediocrity. They allow leaders to do less, promise less, deliver less — and still be greeted with applause.
A republic founded in 1847 should not be living on lowered standards. A country with one of the oldest constitutions on the continent should not be celebrating goods that break down before reaching Gbarnga.
A nation as storied as ours should not be taking victory laps for things that do not transform us.
Liberia is too old to be this small.
Too old to celebrate survival as if it were progress. Too old to cheer for arrivals that collapse before the journey is halfway done.
And until we raise our expectations — of ourselves, of our institutions, and of those who lead us — we will continue to replay this familiar scene:
A nation cheering at the beginning…and pushing at the end.
The casket.
The bus.
The people carrying what was supposed to carry them.
This story repeats — not because it must, but because we have not yet demanded a different script.
