Off the grid

Got my first taste of Beirut's planned daily power outages today, this one from 3-6 p.m. I believe this means tomorrow's will be from 6-9 a.m. One can imagine the butt-clenching anxiety that would accompany nighttime interruptions, but these take place only during daylight hours. On a walk this morning, I spied the Electricite du Liban Building, where contract employees have been burning tires and blocking customers to demand they be made full-time employees.

Those who can afford it have generators to bridge these gaps, but none that I know of can power an elevator. In any event, regular blackouts of some sort have been a way of life here for 40 years.