Expatriate devotes Web site to hometown.
Offers chat rooms, games, articles relating to village of beino.

By Jessy Chahine
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, January 04, 2006

BEIRUT : For 43-year-old petroleum engineer Nakhle Nawfal, Beino in Akkar is not only his native village, but also his all-time fascination. Having spent the last 24 years of his life moving from one country to another, Nawfal said he wanted to provide a taste of his hometown to all Lebanese expatriates around the world. So he created a website dedicated to Beino called: www.beino.net.

Soon to be officially launched, the Web site is already functioning and offers an array of entertaining sections such as chat rooms, games, articles and pictures of Beino. The website also devotes an entire section for Beino families, classified in alphabetical order.

"The mission behind this website is to reach every person all over the world and create a network of people from Beino and help them communicate," Nakhle said.

"This Web site is not driven by any political or financial benefits. It has helped many families from Beino to reunite and communicate again after decades of separation," he said.

Browsing through the Web site, one can read the success stories of many families who have been assisted by the information provided in the Web site to contact their relatives and meet again.

"As the population of Beino is gradually shrinking, this website is the perfect tool to encourage the village's expatriates to go back to their homeland or at least visit it once in a while," he said, adding that the website also promotes renowned achievers from Beino such as writers, painters and artists.

Entirely designed and operated by volunteers, the Web site is updated daily and closely supervised by Nakhle who now lives in Dubai.

Located in the governorate of Akkar, Beino falls 40 kilometers away from Tripoli and is nested at the foothills of the Qammoua mountains around 500 meters above sea level.

Nakhle says Beino now counts 2,500 permanent residents, affectionately referred to on his Web site as "Beinawy's."

The peculiarity of this village, the Web site reads, is its "phenomenal and beautiful weather experiencing a clear differentiation between the four seasons."

Subdivided into two main suburbs - Beino and Qboula- the village is managed by a single municipality referred to as Beino-Qboula.