In 2016, the Economist’s Global Liveability Index ranked Melbourne the world’s ‘Most Liveable City’ for the sixth year in a row. That same year, I spent my first two semesters of tertiary education at Melbourne’s premier university, living in a cramped twenty-four person share-house in the inner-city.

It is difficult to talk about the blast without mentioning the fires, the floods, and the homes without electricity, food or water. The streets choked on teargas, the students beaten by soldiers, the protestors shot in the eyes or killed in front of their children. It is difficult to say anything without mentioning the economic crisis: the Lebanese Lira, plummeting and plummeting, and now in the ground, worth less than nothing.