KFARDEBIAN: Renowned for its agricultural products and especially its fragrant honey, the village of Kfardebian, population 12,000, is also host to an alternative form of tourism. The Beity Association is an easily affordable youth hostel, with prices ranging from $10 a night for a dormitory bed to $20 for a private room.

“We try to do our best to adapt to people’s budgets. We’re an association, not a profit-making company,” says Jumana Billeh, the manager of Beity Youth Hostel.

The president of Beity Association, Josephine Zgheib, a former physical therapist, and her travel companion Billeh, a former math teacher from Jordan, decided to open the hostel in late 2005 to fulfill their dream of accomplishing a project of their own.

“I wanted to do something for me, something I really like,” said Billeh. “Now it’s our work, and it’s not only work, we love it.”

“We decided to call it Beity, which means ‘my home’ in Arabic, because we want people to feel at home here,” said Zgheib.

Though it is first and foremost a youth hostel with nearly 100 beds in two separate buildings, guests don’t chose Beity only to spend the night.

“It’s for people who love nature and who also want to meet other people. It’s more than a hotel, where people stay in air conditioning and only see tourist places,” explained Billeh.

Located at 1,400 meters above sea level, Kfardebian, which means “village of the deers” in Syriac, is the ideal place to escape the crowds and noise of the country’s capital and rest among green trees, fresh mountain air and animals. The village also offers nearby tourist sites, the most famous being the two-millennium-old ruins of Faqra and the natural stone bridge Jisr al-Hajar.

Beity organizes activities for its guests, and also hosts groups that are already on organized trips. As a youth hostel, most of Beity’s programs are designed for children and teenagers.

The association works with several schools to organize visits to Kfardebian and hosts summer camps every year.

This is part of Beity’s educational mission, which aims at preserving the environment, “simply by taking the children to a farm to show them how to milk a cow or pick apples,” explained Billeh.

If the children are lucky, they can even learn how to make arak, “although it’s quite difficult to make,” said Zgheib.

The Beity Association strives to educate while entertaining through activities such as bungee-jumping, hiking, climbing and even skiing in the winter, “when the snow allows it,” said Billeh.

Even the food contributes to the nature-loving spirit of Beity, as all of the food is home-made.

“For example, the vegetables come from the garden right outside,” said Zgheib.

Beity also regularly hosts local non-governmental organization workshops and conferences, where experienced speakers give lectures about topics related to children and young people.

Last but not least, Beity has a charitable mission; it often organizes an entire day free of charge for the elderly, which includes offering food and activities to encourage them to meet each other.

“Sometimes the elderly live alone in the mountain, while their families have gone to the city for work, so we don’t want them to feel too lonely,” said Billeh. Beity’s wide range of activities attracts both Lebanese and foreigners from eight to 88 years old.

According to Zgheib, the 2010 summer season has topped recent years, but “it always depends on the political situation of Lebanon,” she added.

Since 2005, Beity has seen its bookings rise and fall according to the country’s political stability.

And if instability isn’t enough to worry about, there is also the fact that a labor of love isn’t always easy.

“You have to be patient and to really love people, who aren’t always as nice to you as you are to them,” said Zgheib.

Beity Association has a good relationship with the Tourism Ministry which funded the publication of a brochure of youth hostels in Lebanon.

But “it could still do more to encourage tourism, and especially eco-tourism activities like the ones we’re trying to promote,” said Billeh.

Photo by Philipp Breu