Lebanese Village Near Baalbak is a Community in Hiding

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- There is a village just outside Baalbak in central Lebanon's Bekaa Valley with a culture both ancient and beautiful. At night, the streets swell with vehicles and people enjoying the night air, the booming mix of Arabic pop music and revving engines, and one another's company. Pool halls and internet cafes fill well beyond capacity as most everyone from most every home hits the streets to meet up with most everyone else.

On the village's mountainous outskirts is a sprawling fossil hunting ground, complete with caves and still functioning water works built by early man. Many often travel there, by motorbike or ATV only, to commune with the past and look back at their village below. Few venture much farther. A few kilometers past the ancient ruins are modern militant training grounds -- Hezbollah training grounds.

Though considered a terrorist organization in the United States, they are embraced by the village. Young men in their teens can join up, train and get paid, all while staying in school. Anyone who joins is supplied with a contract of service, war fighting equipment, and a sense of community belonging. "In an instant, I'd join up in an instant if the village came under attack," says one teenage resident who knows another that joined up last year. "He joined up after his dad died; heart attack," he explained.

Throughout the village are banners and signs for Hezbollah -- bright yellow and green banners of Arabic lettering forming to grasp an assault rifle. Photography of these banners, despite their abundance, is strictly prohibited. A team community effort is put forth in investigating and interrogating outsiders. Decades of conflict have both galvanized and embittered the people of the village. Some say, with good reason.

During last summer's war between Hezbollah and Israel, the village was largely spared the pounding air strikes others around it suffered. That is, until an LBC (Lebanese Broadcasting Company) reporter commented on the fact that the village wasn't hit. "We saw it coming, my father and I, it flew right over our heads. We immediately dove into the ground as the missile exploded further down the road," recalled one member of the village. Almost immediately after the LBC reporter's broadcast, the village was hit twice: a bridge and a truck depot. Though no one was killed, the attacks had effects that lasted well beyond the war. Up until the report uncovered the village, according to LBC News, Israeli intelligence forces considered the village a Christian community; one devoid of the Shia Muslim base needed for Hezbollah militancy. Some officials even went so far as to nick name the village "Tel Aviv 2" because of its active night life.

So now, any journalist arriving to the village with a list of questions would be better off with a list of answers. Anyone unfamiliar to the village's meager population must be ready to present a convincing case for their stop in the valley community. And everyone living in and enjoying the gorgeous village must be willing to back the home team and put up a stiff barrier between themselves and outsiders in order to protect what is most precious to them: their homes and families, their secret village.