Photo taken on Oct. 8, 2018 shows electricians fixing power lines in the town of Kafr Batna in the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus, Syria. People in Kafr Batna and other areas of Eastern Ghouta had remained for years without electricity until the Syrian army liberated the region from rebels last May. The Syrian government has started exerting efforts to rehabilitate the areas. Now 70 percent of electricity has been back to the populated areas in Eastern Ghouta, according to an electricity emergency department official. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)
DAMASCUS, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Nour al-Habbal has recently explained to her son what is television when he turned eight-year-old because he spent previous years knowing nothing about electricity when the rebels were in control of their area in the Eastern Ghouta countryside of the capital Damascus.
The single mom remained in the town of Kafr Batna in Eastern Ghouta when the region was under control of various rebel groups.
She said that children had known nothing but fears and horrors when the rebels were in control. The electricity was non-existent in her area throughout the war that ended in Eastern Ghouta last May.
She told Xinhua how her son first reacted when he saw electricity and the electrical devices.
"When the fan first worked, my son, got scared. He thought it was going to fall on him because it was something new he was experiencing. When he first watched TV, while we were happy the electricity had returned, he thought that the cartoon characters were talking and playing with him," she recounted.
She even said that her son had electrified himself twice when he tried to stick a needle into the wire before he realized it was hazardous.
Al-Habbal lives next to Samar Sbeini, another woman who lives with her 30-year-old daughter and grandchildren in a lane in Kafar Batna.
50-year-old Sbeini said she had a hard time coping with the situation of no electricity before the army restored Kafr Batna and other areas in Eastern Ghouta.
As a housewife, she had to cope with the situation as if she had returned to the time of the Stone Age.
Speaking to Xinhua, Sbeini said she used to hang the food from the ceiling to keep it a little bit cold as she couldn't use the fridge.
For a relatively old woman like her, washing clothes with her hands has was a burden.
Her daughter Hana has also spoken of how people used to live without electricity, saying that due to the fact that there was no electricity, people started selling their electrical belongings at very cheap prices.
"When we had no electricity, we used to wake up upon the crack of dawn and go to sleep when the dark falls. As there was no electricity or light, people used to escape from the dark night by going to bed," Hana told Xinhua.
Now Hana has taught her four-year-old boy how to turn on her laptop and got him a small cellphone.
The boy and his sister also enjoy the cartoons on TV and still interact with them as if they were real.
The agony of these people faded away when the rebels had fully withdrawn from Eastern Ghouta.
The Syrian government has started exerting efforts to rehabilitate the areas.
Electricity workers in Kafr Batna were still roaming from one place to another when Xinhua team visited the area for the first time after its liberation.
Power lines and electrical transformers were being checked as the streets were bustling with life where shops and restaurants returned to open.
Muhammad Shurbagi, director of the electricity emergency office in Eastern Ghouta, told Xinhua that the electrical work has been ongoing since the areas were recaptured by the government forces.
"The electricity is back 70 percent to the populated areas in Eastern Ghouta but we have some difficulties because we are starting fresh in this area as the previous electricity tools and gears had been stolen by the terrorists or damaged," he added.
The electricity sector in Syria has been largely affected by the more than seven-year war in the country with recent estimates placing losses in the sector at four billion U.S. dollars.
