100 Years of Life: Stories from a Lebanon That No Longer Exists ????????
What can someone who has lived for a century teach us about Lebanon, family, work, love and happiness?
In this very special episode, I sit down with a remarkable man born in 1926, whose memories take us through almost 100 years of Lebanese history.
From growing up in Bikfaya at a time when hospitals were scarce and villages were still isolated, to studying with the Jesuits and becoming a teacher while still very young, his story is a journey through a completely different Lebanon.
He remembers teaching in Mar Abda, Antelias and Sin El Fil, eventually becoming a school director responsible for hundreds of students. He speaks about education, discipline and the values he tried to pass from one generation to another.
But his life didn’t stop at education. Together with his brothers, he entered the world of commerce, developed the family’s small shop and became involved in Lebanon’s supermarket sector — even helping establish the Supermarket Owners’ Syndicate.
His memories take us into old Beirut, when customers arrived from Chiyah and Ghobeiry, when horse-drawn carriages were still a means of transportation, and when getting from Beirut to the mountains was an entirely different journey.
Then came the wars.
He recalls curfews, shortages, soldiers, struggling to keep food available for customers and some extraordinary moments that could only have happened in Lebanon.
Yet some of the most touching stories are not about history at all.
He speaks beautifully about his wife, their marriage, raising their children, losing the woman he loved, and the words and poetry that remained after she was gone.
And today, at around 100 years old, he still drives his own car, remembers the roads, writes, recites poetry and looks back at life with humor, gratitude and an extraordinary clarity of mind.
This is not simply an interview with an elderly man.
It is an oral history of Lebanon told through one man’s life — a Lebanon of villages, schools, horses, small shops, family businesses, war, faith, love and resilience.
A conversation worth preserving for generations. ????????❤️
