Our second full day in Lebanon was the main event of the trip: a visit to Zghartighrine, the mountain village in the north of Lebanon where Erin’s great-grandfather had lived before he and his wife eloped to America, and where many of her ancestors’ descendants still resided. Seeing the sights of Lebanon was a plus, but the REAL reason we were here was for Erin and her dad, Sam, to connect with their heritage.

Headed to Zghartighrine, I truly was uncertain what to expect. While there was ample information for me to access about Beirut and the major attractions of Lebanon ahead of time, Zghartighrine is an internet phantom. A Google search for “Zghartighrine” pulls up a whopping 133 results, and the overwhelming majority of them are just sites that automatically compile data. Hell, I didn’t even have a good idea of how to spell it until we’d been there.

We left Beirut in the morning, and had a beautiful drive along the Lebanese coast, with a snow-capped mountain range approaching slowly as we headed north. Eventually, we veered inland and upward into a lower-elevation portion of the mountains, where we passed towns and groves of olive trees.

As we made our way up one of the small, winding roads, Pierre pulled the car over by a stony ruin overlooking a pasture. This remnant, he informed us, was the home that Erin’s great-grandfather had built and lived in while in Lebanon. I had wondered if the experience would be somewhat detached for me; while I was excited for Erin and Sam having a moment, I still felt a bit like a passenger at first, just along for the ride. There was something special though about seeing my daughter interacting with the space her great-great-grandfather had once called home, and being reminded that I am connected to it all, just through a different route through the family tree.

Further down the road, we arrived into the heart of the village, where it both met and defied my expectations. It was small, remote, communal. Kids ran around its quiet streets, and large herds of goats wandered its fields. But, it was also more modern than I’d expected. The cars looked not that unlike what I’d expect in a smallish American town. The houses and multi-family units the residents lived in were also not substantially different than back home. And even now knowing about Lebanon’s landscape, I hadn’t expected the village to reside in the mountains and have sweeping vistas of much of Lebanon (and off in the distance, a slice of Syria) below.

We pulled into the driveway of the complex that Pierre, his wife, and son shared with numerous other family members, and were immediately greeted by a steadily growing crowd of distant cousins and the like. Before I knew it, we were exchanging greetings and hugs with a couple dozen related strangers of all ages, and Emilia had already run off with a couple of the young cousins. Most spoke English (also a bit surprising to me given the remoteness), though some had to act as translators for us as a few of our elder hosts spoke in their native Arabic.

Moments later, we were ushered into a covered patio where a vast table had been set up and was covered with traditional Lebanese foods. The feast began, dishes and conversation bandied about the table at breakneck pace. While more and more courses continued to emerge from the kitchen, my stomach began to reach capacity. As our hosts would offer yet another plate of lamb kebabs/grilled chicken/Lebanese bread/etc., I would kindly decline, then kindly accept as they excitedly unloaded another serving on my plate. They weren’t about to take “no” for an answer. I sat there, digesting a farm worth and stress testing the limits of my stomach, when Tony, a cousin in his mid-twenties, emerged with a large, mounted drum and another cousin queued up some traditional Lebanese music. 

I tried to process it all, watching and listening, tasting and smelling the things around me, and trying to wrap my head around what a strange trip life is. If you’d told teenage Arian that someday, he’d be sitting down in a remote, barely-on-the-map, Lebanese mountain village, surrounded by 20+ strangers, eating raw lamb while his daughter sits on a huge bass drum as someone pounds out the rhythm to a Lebanese jam, he’d have offered up some pretty intense side-eye. What an incredible experience it was, though.

At one point, a group of the youngest generation pulled us away from the feast briefly to show us the village’s church. Pierre had tried pointing it out to us several times as we approached the mountains from miles away. I hadn’t really understood why he was so excited about a local church, but it was clear when we taken there why it was a point of local pride. The town’s people had pooled their resources to build a church much larger and grander than I would ever expect to find in a community that small.

We returned to the feast to find the party still going and the drum still pounding. As the cacophony wound on, Simon, Pierre’s father, leaned over, and put an arm around me. He nodded toward Erin and warmly told me, “If you are with her, you are family too.” And I felt it, too. This gathering of people, who prior to hearing Erin and Sam would be visiting with their families in tow probably didn’t even have me as a blip on their collective radar, welcomed me into their home like I was very much one of their own. For that I am grateful, and hopeful that in this world of intensifying division and otherness, people can still find that there is much that bonds us regardless of our backgrounds.

After several hours had elapsed, it was time to bid our gracious hosts farewell. When each of the many goodbyes had been shared, we loaded into Pierre’s car and headed back to Beirut. Having seen how quaint and down-to-earth Lebanon could be, we decided to get a glimpse of the other end of the spectrum for dinner. That night, we had a light meal down at Zaitunay Bay, a lively waterfront promenade lined with shops and restaurants, surrounded by shiny high-rises to one side and luxury yachts to the other. It was a far cry from Zghartighrine, to say the least.

The next morning was our first time really getting out to explore Beirut. We walked a good stretch of the city, first stopping by Beit Beirut, a 1920’s apartment building turned war-ravaged sniper house turned Lebanese Civil War museum. It puts into stark contrast the modern history of Beirut, walking amongst the exposed beams and bullet holes that pepper the walls as a chic hair salon and a Dunkin’ Donuts await across the street.

Our footpath later took us down the picturesque St. Nicolas Stairs, through the trendy Gemmayzeh neighborhood, into the stunning Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, and finally to Nijmeh Square, the heart of Beirut’s city center, lined with shops and restaurants encircling a 1930’s Art Deco clocktower.

After a quick lunch, we cabbed it to the Pigeon Rocks (also known as the Raouché Rocks), a pair of limestone rock formations sitting in a beautiful bay. The surrounding rocks were full of people sunning themselves, fishing, and plummeting into the inviting waters below. It was the perfect setting to overlook with some cold drinks before the sun retired for the day.

For our last day, Sam and his partner, Linda, and Pierre headed to eastern Lebanon to visit the ruins of Baalbek — an impressive array of Roman ruins — as well as a couple other sites. I opted to stay back with Erin and Emilia, first and foremost because I felt like we’d been overtaxing Emilia and could use a more relaxed day to see a bit more of Beirut, but also because I was a bit uncomfortable visiting a destination not far from the Syrian border. The consensus from everyone we’d spoken to was that there was no danger to tourists in Baalbek, but I still felt a tinge of hesitation, especially to visit more Roman ruins. Baalbek is supposed to be home to some magnificent specimens, but I’ve been up to my nose in Roman ruins since January — I can’t sneeze without sullying up some ancient Roman emperor’s pleasure palace. 

With a low-key day on the agenda, we went to seek out a few keepsakes and gifts for Erin’s family members that have been unable to make the trek out to Lebanon. We had some wonderful conversations with our Uber driver and the shop owner who sold us some intricately detailed handmade wares, before we reconnected with Sam, Linda, and Pierre to eat and stroll along a sunset-painted Zaitunay Bay again.

We woke the next morning ready to bid adieu to Lebanon. Pierre took us back to the airport, where in typical Pierre fashion, he insisted on seeing us off as far into the airport as security would permit. We finally exchanged fond farewells, and took flight back to Rome with some special memories in tow.