Down the road is a clothing store that sells goods imported from Turkey; many locals have special satellites for Turkish news and TV shows; a municipality building has a large Turkish flag painted on the outside; and a local center offers Turkish language lessons in preparation for university in Turkey, which awards scholarships to qualified high school graduates.

With a population of just 3,500, Kaweishra is so remote that until relatively recently, the Turkish government and even many Lebanese had no idea it existed. Local residents say this isolation allowed the language and culture to remain intact for generations.

Then, in 1989, right before the end of Lebanon’s Civil War, a Lebanese Army officer overheard one of his soldiers speak a few words in Turkish and, curious, decided to take him to the Turkish Embassy. Thus began the first contact between the Turkmen of Lebanon and their ancestral homeland.