Beirut is back on a war footing, thanks to Israel's blitz against its power supply. Beirutis are rationed to two six-hour periods of electricity a day. But they never know when power will come and go. In off-hours, homes and offices make do with civil war era generators which were closed down and packed away as soon as the Lebanese capital's power was fully restored in 1996. Bright yellow and red Japanese-made mini-generators obstruct pavements. Massive engines roar from the depths of cavernous basements, resonating between high-rise blocks. Wires stretch across streets, linking workshops, flats and shops to neighbourhood power supplies. The din of the generators in off-hours is overpowering; the peace and quiet of on-hours a balm to the soul.
Prosperous pessimists pay for 24-hour current: to the government for their 12-hour ration; to their landlord for power supplied by the generator in their building; to a contractor for a small back-up generator and to a shop for batteries to run a fridge, a few lights and the television. The poor manage on current the power company can supply.
Maintenance men have had a field day cleaning and connecting machines since Israeli warplanes bombed key sub-stations on June 25th, destroying the transformers which convert high-voltage power for consumers. Lebanon has the electricity it requires but has been deprived of the means to utilise it. It could take weeks, even months, to replace custom-made transformers burnt out by the bombs. The latest estimate for the cost of buying new transformers and repairing the survivors is $18.3 million (£14 million). Another burden for a country staggering under a external debt of $18 billion.
Electricity is the life-blood of modern cities. They cease to function normally without it. Water cannot be pumped to households or sewage extracted. Computers stand idle, elevators halt between floors, telephones fail, air conditioners and fans do not work.
Beirut swelters during the day. Men sit in rush-bottomed chairs outside their shops on sidewalks while potential customers peer uncertainly into their dark, stuffy interiors. Automatic tills at banks are frozen. Restaurants which normally accept credit cards demand cash. Cafe customers deprived of air conditioning cluster round street-side tables, enveloped in carbon monoxide from car exhaust, deafened by the never-ending stream of hooting, honking cars.
At dusk and late into the night, the corniche along the sea front throngs with pedestrians enjoying the cool breeze. They buy snacks from vendors pushing barrows illuminated by kerosene lamps: boiled and roast corn-on-the-cob, sweet rolls, nuts and fruits. On Hamra Street, the main thoroughfare of West Beirut, fast food shops are mobbed with families who eat standing on the pavement or sitting in their cars. Although most Beirutis cook on gas stoves, who wants to cook in the dark?
Restaurants in the fashionable Rauche area are packed with affluent Beirutis and tourists from Europe, the US and the region, undaunted by the latest exchange of rockets and bombs. Hotels are fully booked by conferences and congresses. Beirut is not the only dangerous destination in a troubled world.
Away from the carefree coast, the menacing black dome of the sky clamps itself on neighbour hoods without streetlights. People remain at home, go to sleep early. The few cars circulating hurry down dark streets from one puddle of generator-supplied light to another.
In spite of the difficulties of daily existence, ordinary Lebanese take pride in rationed power. The government restored current with in three days of the raids, beginning with a period of three hours. The Lebanese know what it is to do without current from public power plants. They survived lengthy periods of deprivation during 15 years of civil war and the Israeli occupation.
Lebanese are also mightily pleased with the speedy and efficient way the authorities replaced the four bridges blasted by the Israelis, disrupting traffic along the four-lane coastal highway from the capital to the south.
The rough-hewn ends of the Saadiyat overpass, blasted by an Israeli bomb, project from edges of the bluff overhead as we turn inland from the coast and climb Mount Lebanon.
A few kilometres along the twisting wooded track, soldiers shunt one-way traffic across a narrow wooden replacement bridge put up by army engineers.
The flow of cars and lorries was quickly rerouted across such temporary structures, restoring the supply of fresh fruits and vegetables from the rich agricultural south to Beirut and the north. But what to do with produce once it gets to Beirut? Power is needed to preserve leafy vegetables and soft fruits. Peaches, cherries, apricots are cheap these days. Farmers and merchants make little profit. They pray, along with everyone else in this angry, proud land: "Let there be light."
