The Lebanese Village

The Lebanese village is exquisite: clinging to the flank of the mountain, all trim and smiling, it delights the eye with its neatness and with the friendly welcome of its inhabitants.

It is a pleasure for the tourist to cross the threshold of one of its houses and admire the fine order of the mattresses piled beneath the coverlet, waiting for night to be spread out and receive the weary limbs of the peasant who has well earned his day.

The aroma of the "mejjadara" escapes deliciously from the pot, and one understands then why Esau sold his birthright for a dish of lentils.

The Lebanese village is hospitable: not that wealth reigns there! Unlike the peasants of other countries, ours is no hoarder. The woolen stocking he scarcely knows. Careless of the morrow, he loves good living, the "arack" and the "mezzé" that make him forget the cares of the hour. Master of his little house and of the patch of ground that surrounds it, he is content with them and lives like a prince in an idyllic landscape that moves him to poetry.

So it is that most of our troubadour poets are of village origin: the humblest shepherd, on his pipes, improvises an ode to Leila as the flock returns docilely to the fold.

The sweetness of summer evenings inspires the dream, creates the images: and what is sweeter than our Lebanese nights, with the starry sky always pure above our heads?

What is more enchanting than the gatherings at the water's edge, at the hour when the young girls, bearing the amphora, come to draw the water needed for the cares of the household; gracefully they bend at the waist, offering drink to the passers-by. It is the hour of chatter; the whole life of the village is concentrated in these restful minutes that precede the last gleams of the dying day.

Indeed, the whole year long Lebanon sings; rather like the cicada, it lets itself willingly be led by the "dabké" and the "ataba."

It was singing that the girls of Jounieh and Sarba — before the magnificent panorama of the famous bay where the venerated Patriarch Hoyek let his ring fall — learned to embroider under the patient gaze of the Ladies of the Society for the Revival of Lebanese Handicrafts.

It was singing that the peasant women of Bchemoun and Ain Enoub learned to knit in the shadow of the ruined castle of Sitt Hebbous.

Hsarat, a lost village of the Jbeil region, without water, without possible cultivation, where communism was taking root, has been cured of it thanks to the weaving of raphia, producing the pretty American table sets that have such success. Prosperity and gladness have returned there, thanks to handicrafts.

For despite his tendency to idleness, to which the mildness of the climate and the beauty of his surroundings invite him, the Lebanese peasant is active and industrious — witness those rows of terraces that rise in tiers across the mountain, holding the arable soil and permitting cultivation on the rocky slopes.

Deeply believing, Lebanon rallies its sons around their respective bell-towers, bastions of all faith and all hope.