It was yesterday, yet the air in Monrovia still hangs thick—a humid blanket that clings to the skin, heavy with the scent of salt and diesel. I walked the cracked streets, past women balancing baskets of fresh greens on their heads, past market women with baskets of cassava, past children kicking a deflated ball in the dust, past the skeletal remains of buildings still scarred by war. This city wears its history like a frayed suit, threadbare but stubbornly proud. Yet yesterday, I felt something new: a simmering unease, a quiet betrayal.

I saw them on Broad Street, where the trees planted long ago in the middle of the street are now showing signs of aging—their branches gnarled, leaves sparse, as if tired of standing watch over a decaying city. The joint security forces—immigration officers, police, and fire service personnel—paraded through the area like a show of strength. Boots pounding pavement, rifles glinting in the sun, security vehicles prowling the street like caged beasts. The official line was to “deter troublemakers,” but who are the troublemakers? The hungry boy hawking phone cards at midnight? The student protesting the closure of her university? Or the men in tailored suits sipping imported whiskey in air-conditioned cigar smoke rooms, drafting empty promises? The display of force felt desperate, a pantomime of power in a nation where justice is still a rumor.

I watched those forces outside government buildings, the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning included, and couldn’t unsee the irony: a nation that cannot fix its roads, its schools, its hospitals, yet invests heavily in chrome and leather seats for bureaucrats and military-style displays. What good is a show of force when the real issues—poverty, corruption, lack of opportunity—remain unaddressed?

Later, I saw the photos of the Ministerial Complex, its faded walls reborn in fresh coats of ivory and gold. Workers perched on scaffolds, painstakingly brushing over cracks that run deeper than plaster. It reminded me of my auntie’s house in West Point—the way she’d drape lace over broken furniture before guests arrived. “Appearances matter,” she’d say, even as the roof leaked. But governance isn’t a parlor trick. A coat of paint cannot mask the rot of corruption, the mold of neglect festering in every ministry. They’ve polished the throne while the kingdom crumbles around them.

Today, I sat on my balcony, the city sprawled below like a restless sleeper. The ocean wind carried the tang of burning trash, the distant thump of generators. My phone buzzed with another tweet praising the “transformative leadership” of the week. I wanted to scream—not out of anger, but grief. Grief for what we’ve accepted as enough.

Low ambition—that’s the sickness here. We’ve been conditioned to celebrate crumbs as feasts, to mistake survival for progress. We clap for shiny buses while our children study under tarps. We marvel at fresh paint on government buildings while clinics run out of bandages. We cheer soldiers in the streets because we’ve forgotten what real security looks like: a job, a meal, a future that doesn’t require a visa.

Liberia is a land of survivors. We’ve endured coups, diseases, and storms that flattened entire towns. But survival is not ambition. Ambition is daring to want more—not just buses, but highways; not just paint, but palaces of learning; not just soldiers, but systems that lift the vulnerable instead of silencing them.

Yesterday, the government would call this week a triumph. But I know the truth: when you aim for the ground, you’ll never touch the sky.

—Yes, I am a citizen, still foolish enough to dream big.