Beirut’s challenge: A wealth of volunteers and a deficit of trust

In the early morning hours in the eastern Beirut neighborhood of Gemmayze, hit hard by the mammoth explosion that rocked the Lebanese capital a week ago, hundreds of volunteers are already on the streets with food parcels and brooms flung over their shoulders.

They are offering help where a widely despised government fears to tread.

Perched near a large pile of rubble, an elderly woman watches the volunteers move in and out of buildings to inspect or clean them up; others open boxes and distribute donated food and water.

“I can’t explain why I am still alive, here, talking to you,” Roula, her face etched with both grief and disbelief, says about the blast that shattered the windows and tore through the walls of her first-floor