Fouad Boulos returned to Beirut in 2007 from the United States having trained there in pathology and laboratory medicine. Fourteen years later he is leaving his homeland with his wife and five children and returning to the United States to try his luck starting from scratch. In the past year, Lebanon has been through a popular uprising against its political leaders, the bankruptcy of the state and banking system, a COVID-19 pandemic and, in August, a huge explosion at the port that destroyed swathes of Beirut.