Over a quarter of the state’s budget goes to Electricité du Liban, yet nowhere in the country has 24/7 electricity. Daily power cuts, 3 hours in Beirut, 12 hours elsewhere, night or day, a rotating schedule of routinized corruption. For those who can afford it, power cuts can be masked, courtesy of the “generator mafia”, whose parasitic spores sustain themselves off hard earned paychecks and diesel. Humming as they coat the country in a carcinogenic haze.

When there are power cuts, we use our phones to light up the stairs on our way home. In the absence of functioning street lamps, we might navigate “sidewalks” with our phones.

And during these protests, our phones, candles, and flares carry currents of hope for a better tomorrow.