Article By: Alpha Daffae Senkpeni, Esq. | daffae82@gmail.com
Last week, I pulled into a roadside car wash after driving through a muddy stretch of road. I was headed to a meeting, and as the old saying goes, there is no second chance to make a first impression. My car desperately needed a quick shine.
As I veered off Tubman Boulevard, three young men came darting toward my vehicle like sprinters chasing the final ribbon. One nearly brushed against my bumper. I slammed the brakes and quickly rolled down my windshield.
“Are you crazy?!” I barked in frustration. “Sorry, Senior Man,” he muttered softly, his apology drowned in the commotion around him. The others were already gesturing wildly, each trying to outdo the other for my attention. One was knocking on the hood. Another had already splashed water on the rear windshield as though the contract had been awarded.
No, they were not working together. They were competing. Fiercely.
Within seconds, their desperation turned into sharp words and flying jibes. What should have been teamwork morphed into rivalry.
I grew angry instantly. Not because they wanted to work. “Hunger can make ambition impatient,” I muttered in my head. But because I had seen this scene too many times before. Every visit to these roadside car washes follows the same script: scrambling, shouting, confusion, conflict. Yet the solution always seemed so simple to me.
I have told them countless times: if two or three of them washed one car together and shared the money, they would finish faster, serve more customers, and ultimately make more money every day. A single broomstick breaks easily, but a bundle bends with strength.
Last week, when I shared this idea, they all nodded in agreement as though wisdom itself had descended on the sidewalk. But today, the lesson had evaporated like a splash of water on hot pavement.
As I reminded them of our previous conversation, they stood speechless — like children caught stealing meat from Granny’s soup pot.
“Da true, Brabee,” one of them admitted.
“Yeah, don’t mind these men dem. They just like rushing,” another grumbled.
“Move, mehn! Da you was jumping in front the Brabee car!” the other fired back sarcastically.
I listened quietly as they threw-talks-on one-another, each blame skipping endlessly over the surface. Then I drove away.
In my rearview mirror, I could still see their animated arguments fading. But as the light poles rolled by, my thoughts drifted beyond those boys at the sidewalk car wash. I began to wonder about us as a people: How often do Liberians truly work together to build something lasting?
Just a week earlier, I had spoken to graduates of a beauty school, encouraging them to form partnerships and cooperatives within the growing beauty industry. I urged them not to walk alone in a country where success may demand unity.
But perhaps the problem runs deeper than business. Perhaps we have inherited a culture of fragmentation — each person fighting alone for crumbs while others unite to own the bakery.
Everyone knows foreigners continue to dominate major sectors of our economy, not necessarily because they are smarter, but because they understand the quiet power of collective effort. The Indians build partnerships and strong business networks that secure major contracts. The Lebanese form resilient commercial alliances. The Fulanis forge webs of trust and enterprise that circulate wealth within their communities.
Their secret is neither magic nor mystery. It is cooperation. It is a shared vision. It is the understanding that one finger cannot lift a stone.
So why do we struggle to do the same on a larger scale? Why do we find unity difficult, even when hardship should naturally pull us together?
My thoughts went back to the roadside car wash, where those boys will probably continue competing for the next muddy vehicle that pulls over. And far above them, in the towering layers of Liberia’s commerce and trade, others will continue pulling the economic strings. At the same time, many Liberians remain divided – staying brilliant individually but struggling to achieve the collective.
Still, I believe there is hope for us. Because every nation rises the moment its people discover that collaboration is not weakness – it is power!
And perhaps one day, beneath the noise of survival and the dust of our streets, those lads at the car wash will learn that when they work together, they will succeed.
