Syria's new government is trying to rebuild. First it must keep the lights on

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Syria's new de facto government faces a host of challenges. One of its most pressing is also one of its most basic: keeping the lights on.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Syria's new de facto government faces many challenges. It needs to rebuild a country where homes, where basic infrastructure, have been destroyed by war and neglect. One of the most pressing challenges - keeping the lights on. NPR's Emily Feng reports from the capital, Damascus.

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EMILY FENG, BYLINE: It's a raucous night here on this Damascus street - roadside vendors, loud bikes and traffic surging past. But just a few steps off the side of this highway and the night envelops you.

We're on this dark, sooty street, and people have lit bonfires in various corners, but it's almost completely dark.

There are barely any lights on. Mohammed Quraysh is selling a cart full of big pomegranates and pineapples, and he has rigged a bright fluorescent lamp above his wares, but it's battery powered.

MOHAMMED QURAYSH: (Speaking Arabic).

FENG: He says if the electricity comes back on, he charges the battery, but it's a big if.

QURAYSH: (Speaking Arabic).

FENG: Quraysh says the power comes on once every four hours or so, but it really varies from neighborhood to neighborhood. The state still rations power to about two hours of electricity a day. It's been this way for close to a decade now. Those who can afford it install solar panel arrays. Other people rely on diesel-powered generators, their fumes contributing to the smog that settles over Damascus each morning. Most residents simply accept the darkness.

KHOLOUD AYOUB: OK.

FENG: Oh, thank you. Thank you for the light.

AYOUB: You're welcome.

FENG: Kholoud Ayoub is one such resident. She welcomes us into her dim apartment one night, smartphone light in hand. She only gets power every seven to eight hours.

AYOUB: (Speaking Arabic).

FENG: So, she explains, when the electricity comes on, she crams all her chores - the washing, her ironing, the cooking and so on - into that one hour. What would life be like with 24/7 power? - I ask her.

AYOUB: (Speaking Arabic).

FENG: "Life would be more beautiful," she sighs. "Electricity is life."

Much of Syria's power infrastructure was destroyed during years of civil war, and although Syria once produced enough petroleum to be a fuel-exporting powerhouse, it cannot export it due to sanctions. Iran used to sell the old Syrian regime crude oil, but has stopped.

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FENG: So enterprising people fill up on fuel for their generators here, just across the border from Syria in neighboring Lebanon.

So we've got these men. They've just got maybe a hundred green plastic jerry cans, and they're filling all of them up with gas.

From there, smugglers told NPR, the fuel is transported through private roads into Syria. And the fuel ends up here...

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FENG: ...On the side of highways in Damascus, still in the same green plastic jerry cans. Abdo Saadeldine is one of the ubiquitous fuel resellers who have popped up all over Damascus since the fall of the old regime.

ABDO SAADELDINE: (Speaking Arabic).

FENG: Saadeldine says he's selling Lebanese gasoline. It's higher quality and gentler on the car engine, he claims. He says selling fuel is not a bad living, but this is just a side hustle. He's really a hairdresser, and this just pays the bills.

SAADELDINE: (Speaking Arabic).

FENG: Saadeldine shrugs. "Love what you do to do what you love," he says. For now, it's a whole network of people like him helping Syria's patchwork energy system run. But if Syria's new leaders want to turn a page, they'll need to move past relying on hairdressers turned gas sellers hawking smuggled fuel. They'll need to rebuild refineries, the power grid - indeed, an entire country.

Emily Feng, NPR News, Damascus.

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