Power Crisis, Rising Prices Deprive Lebanese of Suhoor Ambiance

Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
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Power Crisis, Rising Prices Deprive Lebanese of Suhoor Ambiance

Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Ramadan is known for its special Suhoor time, during which friends and family gather for fun. It’s also an unmissable time for prayer and rest after a long day for many fasters. But today, with the absence of electricity in Lebanon, Suhoor ambiance and preparations are not the same, as private generators owners cut the power off before midnight, forcing many Lebanese to return home early.

Abu Nabil, a man we met in a supermarket in the Lebanese capital, says he uses candles during Suhoor. “I buy a 500-gram pack of candles for 40,000 LBP (1$=25,000 LBP). Our days and traditions have significantly changed. It’s sad and nobody hears us or tries to understand our struggle,” he adds.

The prices of most ingredients including cheese, grains, and flour have skyrocketed, so the families that can enjoy a decent Suhoor are now far fewer.

These products are Suhoor table essentials, as they are healthy and can be used in making pastries and plates fasters need.

In a quick tour of restaurants and cafes in Lebanon, you would notice they’re fully booked at Iftar time, but empty during Suhoor due to the electricity crisis controlled by private generator owners in the capital’s neighborhoods.

“Streets of Beirut are empty as of 10:30 pm. People return home before the generators go off, and the state-run power grid rarely provides us with one or two hours of power during Suhoor time. We have decided to close early, because visitors who come after 10:00 are few,” Ismail, who works in a restaurant in the Sodeko region, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The power crisis in Lebanon has heavily affected the holy month, causing people to skip many traditions and compromise much of their daily lifestyle.

Jana, a mother of three who lives in the Beirut Mazraa area, states that the power crisis prevented her from freezing food like she used to do. “In the past, we used to find whatever we wanted to cook for Iftar and Suhoor in our freezers. Today, however, our freezers have turned into empty cupboards that we rarely open. The lack of power and the increase of meat and vegetable prices have turned our refrigerators into an obsolete accessory,” she explains.

“The generators’ owners are manipulating our life. I struggle to deliver many orders everyday because the power hours differ from one region to another,” Mohammed, a delivery driver, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“When I finish my work, I take a hookah break and a light Suhoor with my friends, then I prepare myself to climb the stairs to my house on the sixth floor because the generator owner in Mar Elias, where I live, turns it off at 10:00 pm,” he adds.

Suhoor plates include cooked beans, chickpeas, pastries like cheese rolls and vegetable pies.

Samira Hammoud, who works as a salesperson, says she’s unable to prepare beans with some chickpeas for Suhoor like she used to do because she cannot afford to buy vegetables, grains, and cheese anymore. “It’s a main course on the Suhoor table. To enjoy it, it should be served with veggies like parsley, radish, spring onion, and tomatoes,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“But today, I eat it without veggies. I can barely eat a cucumber; one kilogram of cucumber costs 40,000 LBP. I totally forgot the cheese rolls, the frozen packs of those are unattainable,” she added.

In some Beirut neighborhoods, some coffeeshop owners insist on opening their doors for Suhoor, serving thyme, cheese, and Kishik manakish, and meat pies alongside some juices and Ramadan desserts like Kallaj and cheese kunefe.

Samer, who works in a coffee shop, says most of their customers come after Iftar and right before Suhoor to enjoy a cup of tea with a ‘kaake’ or a thyme mankoushe because that’s what they can afford.

“The Lebanese used to celebrate Suhoor, enjoying a hookah and chit chatting around a table full of local popular plates including meat, cheese, and veggies. However, today, we miss this scene due to the power crisis and the skyrocketing prices,” he added.



Children Suffer as Schools Go Online in Polluted Delhi

Confined to her home by the toxic smog choking India's capital, Harshita Gautam attends an online class on a mobile phone - AFP
Confined to her home by the toxic smog choking India's capital, Harshita Gautam attends an online class on a mobile phone - AFP
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Children Suffer as Schools Go Online in Polluted Delhi

Confined to her home by the toxic smog choking India's capital, Harshita Gautam attends an online class on a mobile phone - AFP
Confined to her home by the toxic smog choking India's capital, Harshita Gautam attends an online class on a mobile phone - AFP

Confined to her family's ramshackle shanty by the toxic smog choking India's capital, Harshita Gautam strained to hear her teacher's instructions over a cheap mobile phone borrowed from her mother.

The nine-year-old is among nearly two million students in and around New Delhi told to stay home after authorities once again ordered schools to shut because of worsening air pollution.

Now a weary annual ritual, keeping children at home and moving lessons online for days at a time during the peak of the smog crisis in winter ostensibly helps protect the health of the city's youth.

The policy impacts both the education and the broader well-being of schoolkids around the city -- much more so for children from poorer families like Gautam.

"I don't like online classes," she told AFP, sitting on a bed her family all share at night in their spartan one-room home in the city's west.

"I like going to school and playing outside but my mother says there is too much pollution and I must stay inside."

Gautam struggles to follow the day's lesson, with the sound of her teacher's voice periodically halting as the connection drops out on the cheap Android phone.

Her parents both earn paltry incomes -- her polio-stricken father by working at a roadside food stall and her mother as a domestic worker.

Neither can afford to skip work and look after their only child, and they do not have the means to buy air purifiers or take other measures to shield themselves from the smog.

Gautam's confinement at home is an additional financial burden for her parents, who normally rely on a free-meal programme at her government-run school to keep her fed for lunch.

"When they are at school I don't have to worry about their studies or food. At home, they are hardly able to pay any attention," Gautam's mother Maya Devi told AFP.

"Why should our children suffer? They must find some solution."

Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently tops world rankings for air pollution.

The city is blanketed in acrid smog each winter, primarily blamed on agricultural burning by farmers to clear their fields for ploughing, as well as factories and traffic fumes.

Levels of PM2.5 -- dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs -- surged 60 times past the World Health Organization's recommended daily maximum on Monday.

A study in the Lancet medical journal attributed 1.67 million premature deaths in India to air pollution in 2019.

Piecemeal government initiatives include partial restrictions on fossil fuel-powered transport and water trucks spraying mist to clear particulate matter from the air.

But none have succeeded in making a noticeable impact on a worsening public health crisis.

- 'A lot of disruptions' -

The foul air severely impacts children, with devastating effects on their health and development.

Scientific evidence shows children who breathe polluted air are at higher risk of developing acute respiratory infections, a report from the UN children's agency said in 2022.

A 2021 study published in the medical journal Lung India found nearly one in three school-aged children in the capital were afflicted by asthma and airflow obstruction.

Sunita Bhasin, director of the Swami Sivananda Memorial Institute school, told AFP that pollution-induced school closures had been steadily increasing over the years.

"It's easy for the government to give a blanket call to close the schools but... abrupt closure leads to a lot of disruptions," she said.

Bhasin said many of Delhi's children would anyway continue to breathe the same noxious air whether at school or home.

"There is no space for them in their homes, so they will go out on the streets and play."