In the story that follows, concerning the usages, customs, traditions and soul of the nation, I allow a bay of fairylike beauty to speak for itself, a bay that is unique in the Orient and even in the world. It is a bay that I cherish with passion, a bay that I knew when it was still virgin, before it was delivered to the prostitution of modernity, to pollution, to vandalism and to corruption. It was once a holy place with a life and a soul of its own, a soul with its “self”, its face, its music, its friendships, its customs, its children. Its space and its dimensions were not of this earth, but raised toward the divine, a superior being with its own life.

Situated on the eastern shore of the Phoenician Sea, this sea was the fruitful home and workplace where the great civilizations saw the light, this bay belonging to Asia, to Europe and to Africa, that is to say of the ancient world and of all humanity.

This bay is both land and sea, a narrow band of coastline stretched in a semicircle, clinging to a chain of mountains which rise 700 meters high, with more behind them reaching Sannine the Proud, soaring to 3,000. To arrive on this high summit on foot a whole day at least is required. But in less than one hour one can climb up to Harissa, 700 meters up and surrounded by domes, plateaus, terraces and sweeping views down to the sea, all of great and rare beauty.

Several springs of water burst from these slopes and valleys. The one at Hrash (the Forests) bursts forth behind Bkerke, in a valley where nestles a convent and a school of contemplative nuns, and supplies and irrigates several clusters of houses where market gardens do well.

Another spring, on the north side of Harissa, Ain Waraka, with its nearby monastery, waters the northern part of the bay, where down near the shore are many “Noria” once dug out by hand.

Not long ago the roads as we know them today did not exist. There was just an untarred route dating from Roman times which followed the line of the seashore, and another which wound its way in a zigzag up the sacred hill. A verdant valley gave charm to the south-east, recalling scenes of hunt in a mythological past, abounding also in trees of every kind, carob, oak, pine, cypress, eucalyptus, sycamore, mimosa and olive. Along the floor of the valley in winter their sparkled a stream, tumbling from the springs and the melting snows. There one saw also orchards of apples, oranges and bananas, with watered terraces transformed into vegetable gardens.

The houses with their red tiles, scarcely visible in all the greenery, were easy to count. Their little clusters clung around the parish church or some nearby school. A perspective of ancient houses still lines part of the bay. In the past the population was small despite the grand number of schools, run by the Brothers, the Lebanese Monks, the missionaries, the nuns of the Holy Family and of the Holy Hearts, not to mention the religious houses and seminaries.

Along the coastline, the clumps and rows of palm trees gave the area an aspect of paradise. The sand was clean, with no oil slicks or plastic bags. Fishermen in groups of between three and seven could be seen mending their nets ready to be thrown overboard as night fell, with a small light burning to attract the fish. In early morning the men helped one another to draw in the nets from the water and to row their boats back to the shore. If anyone was caught by a storm when far out to sea, there was always the regard of the Virgin cast downward and the confident prayers of her children who implored the saints to bring them back safely.

People would come in crowds to buy the fresh fish, and what remained was sold from home. The strolling peddler would fill his baskets with the harvest of the sea and wend his way through the streets and alleys, proclaiming his wares to the housewives, who every Friday cooked lentils to be served with the fried fish.

I do not deny that after four centuries of Ottoman rule the inhabitants were poor and hardship was to be found. The result was that people were easily satisfied and practiced the virtues of love, sincerity and charity, with good intentions and neighborliness. Jounieh was one big family, and if any little incident caused the least damage, all would run to offer their help.

The people were in the habit of meeting each other in many places, the church, the public squares, the beach, the markets and the shadow of the schools. Everybody knew everybody else. The money used at that time was the Ottoman coinage.

It was after the entry of the Allies at the end of World War I that the bay began to undergo certain changes. These began with the communication needed by the armies. A railroad was laid down linking Constantinople with Suez and Damascus and passing along the Lebanese coast. For this project laborers were needed in large numbers. Thousands of workers were taken on, stone-cutters, masons, blacksmiths, carpenters and woodcutters (for the rails were fixed on trunks of trees cut down in the forests of Akkar), accountants, translators and drivers, and even young boys to carry drinking water on the site, for in the heat of summer water was in constant demand.

Everybody set to work giving mutual help. A family of orphans suddenly found themselves much better off. The track passed between their house and the school of the Brothers and so the worksite where dozens of laborers toiled took on its youngest employee. He was called Zouzou and his job was to go round with an earthenware pitcher with a small spout from which the men at work would drink. He was scarcely five years old; his brother a few years older carried small boxes of stones or branches of wood.

There was much excitement every Saturday midday, when the treasurer came with the pay. Everybody fell into file, including this little toddler who could not even count the number of his fingers. But the organization assured each workman his due, together with such basic foodstuffs as flour and sugar.

Zouzou’s sister would come to help him carry this extra burden and when they reached home the whole family would gather round this manna fallen from heaven. This situation lasted just three or four months far the work was finally finished. Each returned to his usual occupation and the little boy went off to school.

This was a sign from above for the people to take up work and to adopt another attitude to life, all of which was part of the Allied policy of showing that the Christian West was not like Ottoman Turkey.
The scene of activity moved in the direction of the capital, Beirut. After some months all was finished and Beirut was linked by rail to Tripoli, Syria, Turkey and Europe.

For young and old among us it was a new world when the first locomotive puffed around the bay, drawing behind it the first wagons, which were duly counted and admired. People stood along the railroad on a high bridge and hailed the occupants of the train. These were mostly cheerful soldiers who threw to us out of the windows bread, hardtack, cans of preserves, cigarette packets, biscuits and much else besides. Everything had its charm and was new and exciting for us, and as children we ran behind the train, clinging to the wooden steps to be borne along to the station which was just one kilometer from our home. Here we would place longish nails on the track which were squeezed under the weight of the wheels into the form of blades of penknives. The train puffed past, whistled and left behind wreaths of smoke.

On coming home from school, we children sat round a little table lighted by a spirit lamp or a candle in order to write our homework or study our lessons. This task accomplished, we cleared the table to sit down together for dinner, the table being the same as before. Each one had his earthenware plate of local make, for aluminum was not yet known. Sometimes each had his corner of a large dish and with entire regard for the share of the others, eight hands could be seen withdrawing their morsel at once. It was a true family communion. Luxury, modernity, don’t mention them! These were other times with other customs, when simplicity, confidence, kindness and love were the rule. If there was only one apple, it was divided into seven or eight, all the family ate as one.

There was no nightlight, but at bedtime the wick of the lantern was turned down to its lowest, almost extinguished. Between 1939 and 1945 the military authorities advised painting the windows dark blue so that enemy aircraft would not detect the inhabited areas. After the war, a company appeared providing electric power generated by water in the Jeita cavern turning the turbines, a great new project for the bay. First each house was given a lamp and then meters were installed, and a network for lighting certain corners of the streets. Electric labor-saving devices were not to be found yet. As for radio, the wireless receivers were half as big as a kitchen fridge and for one of these one had to pay L.p. 10 per year. Neither did transistors exist, but many handymen like my brother put together wireless sets in the strictest secret, for the police had the power to seize such contraptions.

Then came a water company and drinking water was channeled to the houses. Water beyond the household needs was used to improve the surroundings, for a vegetable garden, for paths bordered with flowers and aromatic plants, roses, jasmine, basil, pinks and marjoram. There was particular concern for cleanliness; mothers sent their little ones to pick up pieces of paper and cardboard and withered plants in order to burn them. There was as yet no municipal cleaning service and each house treated the rubbish in its own way, the chickens eating the kitchen scraps. Solid stuff such as bits of iron and tin cans were picked up by circulating rag-and-bone men who took them for recycling while degradable waste went for manure.

The windows and balconies were flowered and gay; in the spring the orange trees exhaled their perfume, the tang of salt sea-water filled the lungs of strollers along the shore and during the heat of summer one could go right round the bay under the shade of trees – palms, giant eucalyptus, pepper trees, cypresses, acacias, and weeping willows abounded. Trees would be used to fix rendez-vous, for each had its presence, its individuality and its particular charm. Even now people speak of Carob Quarter, the Almond Corner, Fig-tree Square, the Olive-tree Ground (for football), Palm-tree Alley, and so on. To be fair to all Nature’s children one spot was called Zouaitini, “Olivo-Figgy”, because it was dominated by two trees, one an olive tree (zeitouni) and the other a fig tree (teeni), with the Wooded Corner. One might pass a whole day playing with one’s pals, studying, playing and eating, and then go home in the evening. Social change was so slow, so harmonious, so imperceptible!

Around our house there were not many neighbors, but we saw each other every day and the housewives and the gossips would share their opinions and ideas, and give counsel and aid to the point of deciding what dish should be cooked so that the entire quarter would prepare exactly the same food on any particular day. Often the neighbors invited each other in, for the bay was one great family, one great house. Not far from the coast there was a pottery where pitchers, cups, plates, jars and all sorts of things were turned out. The clay was abundant and easily molded. The potter would offer us small quantities of this plastic material which enabled us to give free rein to our imagination, modeling a figurine, a dog, a horse, a tortoise, flowers or fruit. This was for us a real discovery.

Further on a glass-blower’s with wares of every color, pearly, iridescent to enchanted us. What a joy it was to see the piece of glass transformed into a balloon that the blower modeled as he wished.
As for blacksmiths, there were dozens of them, smiths and farriers. We often watched open-mouthed as the red-hot iron was hammered on the anvil and took various forms, plowshare, hammer, pickaxe, pick, or any of the tools used in agriculture or building. Today not one blacksmith remains, so one has to go eighty kilometers to Tripoli, where one might find two or three. Near the shore there was an old house with arches where weavers were installed who wove rather rough cheap carpets. The women would look around for remaining lengths of thread of all colors and thicknesses. The weaver worked to order. All the different crafts and trades had their place, the carpenters, the butchers, the tinkers, the welders, the panel-beaters and the cobblers who measured one’s feet to fit one with a pair of shoes, all of them working entirely by hand. As for the tailors, one had to visit them several times to be measured and fitted – in fact purchase of a costume or a pair of shoes was quite an event. There was a man who could make one a “tarboosh” (fez) and sellers of ice cream and of pastry, and there was also a printing press. In every quarter of the town there was a baker’s oven and shop, with a mill run on diesel oil to grind the corn and items required. There were many who used to buy wheat, wash it, dry it, clean it and then take it to be ground.

The flour was kneaded with the leaven, and next day when the dough had risen, the children helped their mothers to make little balls that they took on a large tray to the baker’s, where there were women who flattened the balls and then passed them to the baker, who put them in the wood-fired oven. Yes, we were still children at school but also a useful work force. Little Zouzou, whom we mentioned above, worked every summer during the holidays whenever he had an opportunity. Sometimes he would be helping the fishermen to bring in their haul of fish or to stretch out their nets and sometimes he would help the neighbors in their gardens, weeding, picking or watering, or watching over the air compressors. When the Zouk power station was under construction, he went two or three kilometers every day on foot to pour cold water over the radiators of the compressors.

In the summer he went to a plumber not far from his home to learn how to weld, cleaning the oil lamps and burners.

Neither town nor people were rich, but change was coming with everything new and adventure in the air.

In the beautiful month of May we would climb up the mountain to Harissa and the statue of Our Lady to pass the whole day.

June the 24th, the feast of St. John, saw the opening of the bathing season and there was much celebration on the sea and on the shore. On September the 14th we picked up twigs and pieces of wood in order to light a fire for the feast of the Holy Cross. Christmas, Easter, the Annunciation, the Assumption, these and the other feasts had their place and their particular charm.

I still remember how when I returned home from Madrid in 1964 I found the key in the door. Trust and security were the general rule, while theft, fear and suspicion were things unknown. What is more, if I came home hungry and wondering what I could eat, I would go straight to the neighbor’s kitchen to find what I needed or whatever was there. All the gifts of heaven and of nature were shared.

As for school, work was quite hard. The study was opened at 6 o’clock in the morning, there was Holy Mass at 7 and from 7.30 to 8 time for a bite to eat and some play. Classes began at 8 and lasted till 12, when there was time for lunch and some recreation. There were more classes from 1.30 to 4.30 in the afternoon, when there was half an hour for another bite before study from 5 to 7.30 during which we did our homework, studied our lessons or did some reading. Dinner in the refectory was at 7.30, with a short recreation at 8, when the prefect’s whistle blew for us to go up to the dormitory, where we slept until we woke at 5 next morning. On Thursday afternoon there was recreation arranged by the school, maybe an outing of some kind, a mock war or a ball game. Even on Sundays we had to go to the school for various activities and for a Mass that ended about eleven.

During the minor holidays or long vacation an extraordinary person passed by with a great box on his back which had four openings each with a lens, the Box of Wonders, a kind of silent traveling cinema. The operator presented a series of images that did not even move and told us their story. We crowded around this magic box to see what it had to narrate.

Once every year our school brought in a conjuror who amazed us with his tricks and sometimes the pupils themselves prepared and acted a play. Sometimes gypsies passed through the streets, claiming to tell the future by reading in our hands. Sometimes an active group would project a cinema film, a great event for which curtains, chairs and loudspeakers had to be brought in.

Playing truant was rare, for the Brothers were severe and imposed strict discipline, so one could not be disobedient or take too great a risk. Little Zouzou grew up and during his holidays started working in a printer’s shop on engravings, photos and inserts. The schools in those days were not mixed, and only during outings, ceremonies and feast days did boys and girls meet, but with what politeness when they did so, not even daring to look each other in the face!

One respected other people, particularly the women and girls. The present-day emancipation was then inconceivable, values were sacrosanct, and a spirit of chivalry guided relations. But we were human beings all the same, with sensations and emotions, with feelings of admiration and compassion. Any girl who had found her admirer, her “hero”, her Prince Charming, was inundated with love letters. For these we used our sisters who acted as go-betweens, carrying the paper in their books or in their pockets. It was very naive and we used to wait for an answer, nursing a pure and ideal love for an adventure of dreams.

We used to meet during the camp-fires that marked the end of the long vacation, innocently, without any deception or falsity. Sometimes we invited all our classmates and my sisters would invite theirs, to sit round a “tabouleh” (parsley salad) and so spend the afternoon. Birthdays were not known, for it was the feast day of one’s patron saint that was celebrated, for example of Saint Joseph or Saint John, and that served as on occasion for offering best wishes.

The spirit of mutual help was everywhere and everybody helped to clean up a street or to plant flowers in some public area. Jounieh belonged to us all and was our great home. When I spoke of “my bay” at Madrid, I had not yet seen Rio de Janeiro, Neuchâtel and such places, but “my bay” remained a wonder in my mind, like another self. There is fantasy in Nature when every element is added to celestial light in its association with the earth. In my eyes the beauty of Jounieh was every instant renewed.

This lasted until the end of the nineteen-sixties. Then Jounieh began to self-destruct. Wild urbanization meant roads mercilessly scaring the slopes, and shapeless, tasteless blocks of concrete growing up everywhere. Banana trees, orange trees, vines and vegetation were ruthlessly torn up and the pine woods condemned. One fire after another ravaged the mountainside, the flames reaching Harissa almost to the foot of Our Lady. Ruin has been total and systematic and all the charm of my Jounieh has disappeared. Cables, electric pylons, telephone lines and high-tension wires have made a tangled labyrinth, a pitiful chaos. Sewers, so-called, have polluted the roads, spreading their stench and smothering the fragrance of fruit blossom. The tiles have been torn off the roofs to allow the construction of one or two more floors.

The sand looted from the beaches has gone for sale to the building sites. The coast where dozens of artificial lidos have grown up has become filthy with bitumen and rubbish and been ruthlessly exploited, while the fishermen who gained a livelihood there have fled elsewhere, so there is no more local fresh fish, only fish imported. The rocks torn from the mountains have been thrown down to act as breakwaters to protect the dwellings from the angry sea. Asphalt is everywhere, leaving no more greenery. There are traffic jams on the roads, noise and garbage, all in the name of development and urbanization for a new society.

Jounieh, a Christian town with dozens of churches, has suffered the departure of hundreds of its inhabitants. The district of Maameltein-Mina has become overgrown with night-clubs, casinos, bars, dance-halls, stereos and all that goes with them, parlors for “massage” and other forms of liberty. One can no longer move freely in the quarters that remain unchanged, by reason of the traffic, noise, and pollution. There is no more verdure, only a race towards ugliness and decadence. I can no longer recognize a single person who passes through there. One sees uncountable shops, money-changers, and supermarkets. Jounieh has wanted to grow up, the story of the frog and the ox. Houses rise higher and higher up on the flanks of the mountain and outsiders come from everywhere to exploit the town’s resources, while its true inhabitants, seeing its death-throes but being unable to act, either keep silence or go to build homes elsewhere. Some still pray in the shadow of Our Lady of Lebanon, hoping for a miracle. This bay which I cherished and whose praises I sang, I recognize it no more. Likewise our emblem the cedar has been prostituted in the name of the Nation and our national anthem leaves a few refrains to be “recycled” so as to be brought up to date. For my part I prefer my own dear tree, the olive tree from which I pick its olives, extract its oil and make my soap, the carob tree which gives me delicious and energizing molasses. We live under a regime of lies, falsification, and decadence, while we lack faith and the courage to call our condition by its true name.

Joseph Matar
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Translated from French: K.J.Mortimer