Desperately in need of clean clothes, I swung open the door to my washing machine — newly acquired since moving into an apartment in West Beirut’s student-populated Hamra — to pull out my first load of delicious-smelling T-shirts.

In my eagerness, I strained my elbow, sending prickly tingles into my hand or so I thought. I flexed my hand a few times and reached for a damp T-shirt. Again my hand erupted into uncomfortable nerve-ending spasms.

I stared at my hands. A moment of clarity fell upon me and testing my hypothesis, I reached my other hand into the washer. Lo and behold the tips of my fingers were a flutter in tingly sensation.

My laundry had an electric current running through it. And it didn’t surprise me one bit. I hollered to warn my roommates, ‘My laundry’s electrocuted!’

This marked just one of the many battles I’ve faced with the bizarre and altogether unreliable state of electricity in Beirut. Beirut suffers incredible electricity problems, problems it shares with neighbors like Syria. And though I can’t say laundry usually comes to life like something out of a ‘Goosebumps’ episode, adjusting to the way utilities work — or don’t — in Lebanon has provided quite a learning experience, and also a rare spot of appreciation for home.

The answer for charged apparel is to unplug the washer and put on a pair of rubber-soled sneakers.

In the United States, power outages, anticipated weeks in advance or the product of grizzly weather, make headlines in local or even national newspapers. Here, people take a flutter of the lights or a few hours without electricity as completely routine. In fact, ‘rolling blackouts’ is the term given to the officially enforced, daily blackouts each neighborhood experiences.

From my understanding, rolling blackouts ensure heavy daytime use doesn’t overload the municipal provider and plunge the city into sweaty darkness for the foreseeable future. A mixture of inadequate electrical infrastructure and underfunding sits at the root of Beirut’s power problems, as well as the horrific slowness of its Internet.

A monthly calendar hangs outside the elevator of my office building, telling me inconveniently in French what three-hour block the power will be cut each day: 9 a.m. to noon, noon to 3 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Staring at the sign trying to discern if today is mercredi or jeudi, I worry my poor translation will leave me — for the second time — helpless between floors as the elevator grinds to a powerless halt. The days when air conditioning ran uninterrupted, computers let you write without the imminent fear of losing your work and Internet bandwidth allowed for YouTube streaming are but a memory.

Following his return from the city of Erbil, in northern Kurdish Iraq, my German journalist friend Christophe shook his head as our conversation with another friend cut in and out of Skype. ‘You know the Internet is like three times faster in Iraq than in Lebanon?’ he said, noting the apparent irony as we all for a moment wished to be on our computers in Iraq.

Most affluent establishments ­­— restaurants, offices, luxury apartments, bars and so on — use generators to restart the power after several minutes of blackout. But for the majority of Beirut’s residents, even in our $1,500-a-month apartment, daily activities must work around the inconvenience of powerlessness.

In some cases, the precarious state of electricity is a source of humor; uproarious cheers rise from a crowded Beirut karaoke bar every time the Arabic music cuts out and nothing but the faint glow of hookah embers remain visible.

And in comparison to my British co-worker, perpetually wary and frustrated with the lack of Internet, blackouts, and constant hassles of living in a developing country in spite of its Western sheen, the Lebanese don an air of patience. Though it’s more likely apathy, for the locals often say, with their palms raised in the air and a shrug of the shoulders, ‘Welcome to Lebanon!’

Beckie Strum is the editorial editor and a senior newspaper journalism and Middle Eastern studies major. To read more about her experiences in Beirut, Lebanon, where she is a summer intern with Time Out Beirut magazine, visit her blog at beckiestrum.wordpress.com. She can be reached at rastrum@syr.edu.

Published on July 3, 2011 at 12:00 pm