post 39/365

Marjeyoun’s name (meaning meadow of springs) comes from the 54 springs in and around town. It stands majestically at a hill facing Jabal El Sheikh to the East, the old Crusader Castle (Sh’ief Arnoun) above the Litani River and overlooking Jabal Amel to the West, The Rihan, Niha and the Lebanon Mountain Range to the North and the fertile plains of Sahil Marjeyoun between the Galilee finger and plains immediately underneath the Golan Heights.

Driving up and down the mountains, you can see it hanging above in the mist, pure and gentle still waiting to be kissed. A village all forgotten, somehow time had missed it yet its people revive it with tender care and loving hearts. This village protected by the trees that embrace it among the scattered little old houses with red roofs like little rubies on the land. As we drove to it, I pulled on to the shoulder and tried to see as best I could this simple town that had not aged. It was perfect, untouched, special, a village bathed in grace. Maybe it was just a trick of light and sun manufactured through the haze. The village may be magic. It may be something in between. In truth all I can tell you is what I saw through my heart and my eyes.

It’s a village, plain and simple, in the woods, all shades of green, un-kissed, and yet so perfect stuck in stasis, in between.

Marjeyoun is not just picture perfect; it’s a village, a community of people that connect together on different levels. It’s a life where people are all meshed together in happiness, in sadness, in love, in disputes, in preserving it, and most importantly in loving it. Through its little alleys that swirl up and down through the hills, Marjeyoun is a picture perfect village of the South. You can sense a bit of loneliness and sadness as the wind brushes through the small alleys a reminder of a past that has seen much and yet its beautiful houses well preserved speaks of tale of a land that is loved and always will be loved. This place was the old Roman Road that Jesus used to walk traveling from one town to another preaching. The road starts in Jerusalem to Sidon passing through Marjeyoun and through the village of Maghdouche, then continues to Tyre where Jesus’s first miracles occurred in Cana, which was his mother’s and Grandfather’s Village.

This village is life. This village is eternal and its villagers are immortals. The people who live there are a mix of people coming from all over the region. They are a community that care and take care of each other. If you haven’t been to Marjeyoun, visit it and walk along its beautiful little alleys and maybe you can hear the wind tell of tales and families long past.

Because Marjeyoun is a home I am proud to belong to, I #livelovelebanon and I will #fighton

The picture above is taken by Elissar Rached over looking Samir and Jamal Rached’s home.