Thank You for publishing my uncle's book on the internet. 
Unfortunately, I cannot download the information as I do not have the software that supports the documents.
Well done on a good job.

Yvette Fahkry neice of Fouad Salloum
(Marie Salloum's daughter)

I am Elie Mtanious Issa from Ghowaya. When i first knew about the website i didn't hesitate to visit it and really what i saw surprised me because when you say that you're proud to be kobayatian you should got a good reason to be & thanks God we got many reasons for that, but this webpage is the best for what it could offer for us & all people to see & touch the beauty of our land & nature, our knowledge & education, our culture & prosperity & finally our hospitality & great faith in God. So all that i can say good work & God help you to carry on your faithfull job until you & we hit the same target & enlarge this project that is the benefit of our gorgeous village.

it's not important who act as much the act itself.
And if i could be helpfull in any way i'm an interior designer & i volunteer my ability & experience if needed.

God Bless You All
Elie.M.Issa

الصديق المهندس إيلي عبود

بودي تهنئتك على موقفك الديمقراطي المعبر عن حسك السليم في قضايا الفكر، ففي تقديمك ل"صفحة" "كتب القبيات" ليبرالية قل نظيرها في عالم اليوم في معظم بلدان العالم الثالث. إن حرية التفكير والتعبير شرط لازم لتطور والوعي والشعوب. وهذا الشرط أنت تحاول تأمينه، وعليه تشكر كل الشكر.

ليس ثمة من شك بأن الحوار الفعلي هو حوار الاختلاف، وبأن هذا الحوار يحتاج بالضرورة إلى فرص متساوية في حرية التعبير. أشكر لك ما تبذله من جهود. وأتمنى لك دوام النجاح. وعسى أن نتمكن من المساهمة معك في تنمية حس الحوار والتواصل القبياتي - القبياتي، والتواصل القبياتي - العكاري.

تقبل خالص شكري وامتناني، وتقديري لجهودك.

جوزف عبدالله، مساء 12/10/2000

Salut.

Je suis très fier que Notre Kobayat figure parmi les sites Internet. Et c’est pourquoi je suis très reconnaissant, à toi, cher ami Eli ABBOUD, qui as mis tant de travail pour que ce site ait vu le jour.

Sois sûr Eli combien ton travail serait grand et important, si tu arriverais à faire figurer Notre Qobayat de par Son (Notre) entourage naturel Akkar.

Je te remercie beaucoup d’avoir émis la nouvelle de la signature de mon livre. Prière de corriger l’écriture de mon nom Joseph ABDALLAH.

Dr.Joseph ABDALLAH. 6/10/2000.

Rommel Souhail Ghosn -   FRANCE

Georges 
São Paulo, Brasil

Je suis Michele Ghosn .
Je suis très heureuse de voir que kobayat est on the web, mes remerciements pour tous et spécialement pour mon oncle Youssef qui figure sur la page de la municipalité.

THANKS to Mr. ELIE ABBOUD giving us the opportunity to read and see every thing about Kobayat our very nice home town. I am happy to be now in PARIS and I can in the same moment watching the fiest of "NOTRE DAME DE KOBAYAT".

In 1988 I emigrated to Australia and dedicated myself to serve the Lord. I was ordained to the priesthood in December 1991 in Sydney.
God bless you and enrich the works of your hands.
Say hello to all the good people like you.

 Rev.Bakhos CHIDIAC
 Pastor of the Holy Family Maronite Church,
 St.Paul, Minnesota, USA

HI THERE

kifkon yoooo and hope u will stay bi hall himmi always...
please let me hannik of what u r doing cos we know verry well that this is not done without many efforts and working hours.. i hope if i can help in anyway .....
please let me ask u one thing if it is with no harm, why u did not use WWW.KOBAYAT.COM...OR ORG. OR NET OR...?????????

i am not going to be shy from u and please accept it from me as i want like all of us the best for our village.. the site's music is not so beautiful i ma wonderingif u can do anything about it...
one more time alla ykoun ma3ak and yikallik bi hall himi and be sure that many of us if not all ready to help in anyway...
 

regards

=======================================

Dear Friend.

Thank you for your message and for your suggestions.

About background music, the web can use for the moment, only 4 kinds of files: .mid/.rmi/.wav/.au. The technologies of web-construction cannot for the moment supports other kinds of files for direct publish. The .wav and .au files are too big formats for downloading when website start playing, that mean greater time that most systems cannot support them. The .mid/.rmi that we use now are light but very limited, I have making a lot of search for possessing our music library of these kinds. Our search now is around converting some Lebanese popular music and sounds to rmi/mid files, but for this moment, no interesting results because no software in the market can make this real conversion.
MP3 files (we can convert any music to) cannot be directly published on the web, but they can be downloaded for playing there with MP3 programs.

There is a tryout in USA now to make some compressed kinds of files to be ready for direct publish on the web, and when this try succeeds we can use it tremendously.
You know that 3 minutes playing subject on the page-web takes some time many days of preparation and nobody here help me in any way, and give the necessary time or documents for preparing subjects (most the people here, as you know well are interested to the local politics…only). This work is for moment still individual in time that it requires a big effort and a lot of time.

 
About using .com /.org /.net, this is our second step, when some financial problems will be solved.
I promise you to make what I am able to succeed this site and to establish the truly and the faithful connection between our village and the stranger.
Note: we are now under heavy construction.

We will appreciate any ideas or suggestions.

Sincerely yours…. ELIE
Stareast Org.
KOBAYAT Website
Thursday, June 8, 2000 11:46 PM

Thank you Elie, for visiting our Web site and signing our guest book. And thank you for introducing me to the Kobayat 2000 Web site. It appears that we may have inspired you to write up the Other links page:-) I'm glad that we could help.

P.S. I like the Auto Scroll feature on the Visitors page. I may use that some time on one of our pages.

Regards,
Charlie Zeaiter.
www.maronite.org.au

Dear Elie,
My name is Sharbel Sassine, son of Joseph Sassine who's the brother of Dib and Adib Sassine, both featured on the web page.

I'd just like to say congrats on this fabulous web page that you've created here. 

I m from Melbourne Australia and i have just gotten the address and taken a look at the page myself for the first time. I think its great that you've decided to do this and encourage you to continue building it, and updating it with all the latest from our humble Kobayat.

I m currently forwarding the page to friends and relatives of mine here, and soon it'll be all over Australia! Keep it up!

Sharbel Sassine

It was with great pleasure that I have seen this web page growing that fast.
I really congratulate you for your efforts and do think that you will give it more of your magical touch with time to come.  
I have suggested this page to many of my friends, you know, we, as "Kobayathian" should spread the word to every one.  

The one and only comment I had was: why not elaborating more the panoramic pictures of the village and some of its history?  
Everyone seems to be interested in our exceptional nature, so I kindly urge you to put more info concerning our natural environment and some of our special landmarks, likewise Kobayath will be an attraction, and this web page a lighthouse guiding foreigners.

Sincerely, 
Graziella G. Iskandar

Dear Elie and Koubayatan's.

"Yin Ad Alley-Kom Bil Khair Wa Bil Farah" HAPPY EASTER!
Today I opened the web page on Koubayat, and read all the information.

I am very very happy to have read all the emails from all the people around the world, we need more pictures on our village and of our people and of course all the NEWS. 

All the "Koubayatans" in Dubai are fine and say hello to everyone.
My best to you and your family and to Hazzah and Roula.
My mobile number in Dubai is 971 50 6528554, by email you can reach me through my friend Laura Choueri's :  lchoueri@emirates.net.ae
 

Love from Dubai
Paul Zaitoune

Hello Elie
My name is Samantha Abboud, daughter of Youssef Abboud, from Melbourne Australia. I was told about your web page and I quickly looked it up. A job well done. I really liked looking at the photos, especially the photo of my grandfather, Makhoul Kdeih, and the photos of George Nader and his sisters were very good too.

Thanks for putting the site up on the internet for people from all over the world to see and learn about Kobayat. Also thanks very much for the news section, please fill it up with all the latest news from the village.
 

Good luck 
Samantha Abboud

...We love your website! My family and I log onto your site often and we are looking forward to seeing more recent pictures. I left Kobayat 29 years ago, but I am still very interested in all of the news updates and happenings around the town.
I can't wait to see all of the coming attractions! 

Keep up the good work!
Best of luck,
Vera Daher Sleiman

this is cool we all have the same last name "abboud". where are you all from? 

my dad is from Lebanon. 

e-mail me if you want.

Hello,
We just want to congratulate you on your work, even though we have two small remarks :
1- the colors can be better chosen.
2- there should be bookmarks on the pages, so that when we click on a certain link, it should take us to the corresponding information.
 

again, nice work
Y. Ghosn

... he sat it for us tonight. and I spend more than 3 hours looking at your web site, before the kids mess with it again. really, I appreciate what you done, it's wonderful. 

I write later for you.

alla yi awik ,
it is been a while, I like all the new staffs you added. I am sending you a "Revenge " attach take care.
 

Big kisses for Edwin and Marie Lou
ps : I did give the web address for few kobayatiens in here but .....

Hi Elie.

I am Joseph Wehbe e-mailing from Lagos, NIGERIA.
Many thanks for what you've done. At least you were the first one who got this great idea.
All the best.

REGARDS

I found out about you from my dear friend GK an truly I am delighted with your achievement. It is a practical instrument to keep us abroad in touch with our homeland news and events. My congratulation on a project well done. I would like very much to see more improvement in the future, and I am sure that is what you looking forward to achieve.

If I may suggest something, I strongly recommend that you open a facility for persons in Lebanon as well abroad to exchange email letters through your web site for the fact only minority have computers or access to the net in Kobayath. In our turn, you are welcome you or any person in Kobayath to use our emails in Australia to send correspondence to his family and friends.

I Thank you again for your great project an hopping to hear from you soon, until we chat again I leave you in God's care and wish you all the best. 

yours 
Joseph Jamil Daher.

Hi Elie.

congratulate me. I finally open Kobayat website and I can see all pictures, and others subjects. It's great, it's so nice to see our village online. By the way even in Strasbourg, I'll connected, we'll keep in touch.

Hello to your family.

Ciao Eli, come stai !

da quello che vedo stai tranquillissimo, vero !
mi è piaciuto tanto il tuo sito ( soprattutto la parte che mi interessa furbo !), è un sito speciale per un'amicizia veramente eccezionale !
ti chiedo di finire le foto di Kobayath quanto prima ! non vedo l'ora di vederli !
 

a presto

Hi Elie.
All the best to you. I loved your page it is so wonderful and inspiring to see the pictures. I don't have any suggestions about the page except that was in the process of writing one that would include more general pictures from Kobayat and some short humorous stories and gossip. I was even asking Yara to send me some pics of people and landscapes from there. The page will also include some information about the area and the people.
 

If you have any old and damaged photos, I will be happy to digitally fix them for you. Just email them to me in a jpg, tif or gif format.

Keep in touch.
Nazih Sassine, USA

very good mahatah............yatik alaafiya.

Georges Nader

I'm Charbel Jabbour. I'm in Togo now. I got your page by Freddy Daher, it was a very nice surprise. I say hello for all your family...
Hope to see you soon and ysalem idek...

Charbel Jabbour, TOGO, Central Africa