It is as though the writer of the article were proud of the health of her goats... To her right, the director of the center, Dr. Olter
Come, reader, look in with me at the "Jibrail Center"... But before we set out, I want to ask you an inquisitive question! What does "Jibrail" mean to you? Do you think this name belongs "to a man," as I thought the morning I first heard it? — and learned afterward that it is the name "of a village"... No! Not in Syria... but here, in our own country, in the district of Akkar!!
It lies no more than forty-five minutes by car from where I live! Blessed be the geography lessons I was taught at school! — which made me memorize by heart most of the cities and villages of the continents of Europe and America, while of the cities and villages of my own country I know but little... or next to nothing at all!
After this introduction you may ask: and what is the point of your "look" at the Jibrail Center? I answer: for no reason other than that you are a citizen of this country; and I shall try to tell you, through these lines, a delightful tale whose events and experiments are still unfolding at this center — the tale of bringing life back to the village! And because you, like me, realize what our villages suffer of stagnation, and of
the migration of strong arms away from them, whether overseas or to the cities. And because you know the importance of the village in production. And, finally, to say to you: the ink set down on paper is of no use unless it passes into practical execution. The speeches and the reports on what the village suffers and on raising its standard — all of them avail nothing unless they are brought into being. This center was an idea; the idea took flesh and became a small work at the beginning, and it is still growing and getting bigger day by day, for no purpose but to restore confidence to the bewildered, toiling soul, tormented on the land — the land that cannot be done without, though many are ignorant of how to make it yield and how to work hand in hand with it.
And now, after this philosophizing, which may please you or may not, let us walk on and
Four students of the institute watering the garden ..