To the people of Baabdat, our relatives, children and beloved on this earth... it's difficult to pack your life in a bag and leave behind you your family, land, home, roots and heart.
I traveled around Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Canada, the USA and a lot of countries around the world... I met a lot of you and I know exactly the deep relationship between you and this land. Lebanon is still in your heart and Baabdat in your soul.
A new generation came along. Generations will come. Life will change. There will be a different language, foreign traditions and an unfamiliar atmosphere one generation after the other...
There are people from Baabdat who live in the same city and even in the same neighborhood and street and they don't know each other! There are people from Baabdat who emigrated and their names changed or were pronounced and written in different ways abroad. The origin faded away with time. In the Labaki family for example, new family names sprung whose origin the new generation doesn't even know! There are immigrants from Baabdati origin who ignore today after many years passed where they come from. For example, the Melki family in Argentina thinks that they come from Syria and not from Baabdat, Lebanon!
That's why we want this website to carry your history since the beginning of the XVIth century. It is addressed to you, cares about your issues and concerns, longs to meet you wherever you are. Oh, people of Baabdat, the soul of the village of the Maten department, with its culture, beauty and generosity. Your village dreams of breaking the ice of distance and building connecting bridges online...
Oh, people, who left your source of living, relatives, parents, homes and fresh air, you will be able to discover and know the place where your ancestors were born, which relatives are still there, and everything that binds you to Baabdat through investigations we will make on this site.
Are you still asking: why and to whom is this Baabdati site?
It's yours. It's you. It's the vein that has to whisper in every heartbeat, the word: Baabdat, Baabdat, Baabdat...
Yours respectfully,
The Baabdati Toufic Labaki