MASHGHARA LOOKING BACK WITH LONGING

This article is whriten by Mgr. Salim El-ghazal the son of Mashghara about Mashghara and its people and the live they use to have.

In every person's mind there are effulgent corners from which glowing rays stream out so that at certain moments one is enraptured by memories of the past and gains the strength to support the hardships of the present and the nagging worries about the future... Despite dark days and the rumblings of war, there are always sweet glimpses of one's childhood that will never be lost: Mashghara, captivating and innocent in the paradise of its orchards and vinyards, Mashgara with its peasants setting off at dawn to ensure the fertility of its soil and the abundance of its harvest, breaking the naked rocks and transforming wilderness into gardens and oases... Mashghara with its market-street crowded with the workmen from the tannery tramping before sunrise with vigour to their work... Mashghara with its roads and tracks scored by vehicles burdened with the produce of the plain... Mashghara with its schools and its public places bustling with youth after study, playing together and sharing hours of brotherhood and friendship... When there was no Ahmed going home in tears and relatives of his taking axe and gun to settle accounts with the parents of George, who had hit him, and no parents of George filing a complaint with the Security Council if Ahmed pushed their son into a hedge... Mashgara which gave Lebanon an elite in the fields of the intellect, the arts and the economy. Between its venerable buildings the first tannery was founded... Outstanding economic and cultural achievements in Australia, Canada, the U.S.A. and Mexico have been the work of immigrants come from this authentic Lebanese town... We feell pride as children of Mashghara, a scenic town and example of co-existence, which despite the disfigurement of this picture during the Lebanese war, will surely never break adrift from its authentic origins but will present its gleaming face in tribute to the blood of its sons and martyrs, who always believed in the Lebanon of unity with all its communities and rights...