HASBAYA, Lebanon: In some places in the world, barter is still a way of doing business. A chicken, for example, can be traded for a rooster, or a goat for a donkey. In Lebanon, that place is the Khan market in the southern village of Hasbaya.
The market has been active for decades and has seen enormous changes. It has been renovated many times, and every Tuesday, villagers, farmers, peasants and cattle herders in south Lebanon come to offer their produce up and see what they can get in return.
“We still preserve some of the Lebanese rural traditions,” Yehya Dakr, a resident of Marjayoun, told The Daily Star as he traded his goat for a few chickens. “I buy livestock for slaughter, to organize feasts and Arabic parties. For us Arabs, we have to slaughter lambs during the special holidays.
“All of Lebanon’s sects are found in this popular market, and we are all one family. Money comes and goes, but a person’s love and their treatment of others are a treasure in these times of murder and treachery.”
Situated in Hasbaya, a town on Lebanon’s southeastern border with Israel and Syria, the market used to attract people from an enormous area, back in a time when borders were easier to cross.
“In the past, the market was a commercial station that attracted thousands of traders from Palestine and the Golan Heights,” said Fawzi Naim, a trader at the market. “The traders would transport their products and merchandise on mules and horses during times when barter was the easiest way to trade.
“Rashaya residents, for example, used to trade their pottery dishes, pitchers and cups for citrus and other plants.”
Leading several sheep he had just bought from the market “by a stroke of luck,” Hussein Makki, a butcher from the southern town of Houla explained that the market was the perfect place to make sure you got the best deal.
“I come here every Tuesday morning to pick goats and sheep, and sell them during the week,” Makki said. “Sometimes after I buy livestock, I find a better one so I trade mine with it.”
Dozens of trucks and pick-ups line up outside the market carrying more livestock for sale.
A number of UNIFIL soldiers, who work to keep peace in south Lebanon and on the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line border with Israel, often come to the market too.
“Lebanon is beautiful,” said Tago, from Colombia, who was there to buy apples and eat grilled meat. “This market is like a small town where one finds farmers living the simple life off of their plantings and livestock.”
The market is raucous, with people calling out their deals on not just animals but also grapes, pomegranates, olives and olive oil.
Negotiating to trade a sheep for some olives, Abu Mujahed pointed to the sheep he was buying. “It’s not for slaughter,” he said. “I will raise her so we can milk her and have milk and yogurt.
“Look at how beautiful this market is, I come here to buy and trade livestock,” said Haydar Moussa, from Sidon. “I buy sheep in kilos; LL8,500 for every kilo. I traveled 50 kilometers to be here with the shepherds and butchers.”
“This lamb would regret being here if he knew that I will slaughter him,” joked Saeed Akl, as he left the market for his town Labaya in the West Bekaa.
Another market frequenter, Ahmad Abu Shebli, had traded a donkey for two sheep.
“It is olive season and a donkey is capable of reaching the fields, carrying olives, and taking it to the olive mill,” he said. “So I traded him for two sheep that I can raise to have them give birth next year.”
Coming from Khulwat al-Bayada in Hasbaya, Fawzi Abu Ibrahim said: “I’ve been coming here with my father ever since I was a child, which is 60 years ago. I buy sheep for slaughter to make awarma [spiced minced meat with pine nuts], which we eat in winter days when roads are closed and the temperature drops below 7 degrees Celsius.”
Also an old-timer at the market, Hisham Kanaan from the Shebaa Farms said: “Since 1960, I’ve been trading livestock. I buy and sell and loan people who don’t have money. I examine livestock without a doctor’s stethoscope, and if I find a sick animal or one that walks funny I leave it.”
With a lamb on his back, Kanaan started calling out to potential buyers: “Come quick! Every three lambs are for LL150,000, and whoever wants to trade is welcome.”
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