The Cairo Rag Woman with the Beautiful Heart

The Middle East has lost a beloved friend with the death of Sister Emmanuelle, the outspoken French-Belgian nun known for her solidarity with the world's poor and homeless. She died in a French village yesterday at age 99.

In her 60s, Sister Emmanuelle came to Cairo and spent 20 years or so living and working among the informal garbage collectors known as the zabaleen in the Mokattam slum. In a part of town that wreaks with the foulest stench 24 hours a day, she helped create schools, medical clinics and playgrounds. Her devotion to children was absolute, exemplified by an image that shows her plunging into a swimming hole with kids still fully clothed in her nun's habit. With a no-nonsense wave of the hand, she dismissed comparisons with Mother Teresa but that's the figure she cut during her time in Egypt. Hearing of her death, the Vatican itself drew the parallel, saying that like the endeavors of her Calcutta counterpart, Sister Emmanuelle's work transcended national borders.

Sister Emmanuelle wrote of her experiences in Egypt in one of her many books, Chiffonnière Avec les Chiffonniers (Rag Woman With the Rag Pickers). I love the Arabic-French title of another of Sister Emmanuelle's memoirs, which hints at an appreciation of the needs of the Middle East too often overlooked by its leaders and foreign reformers: Yalla, En Avant Les Jeunes! (Onward, young people, let's go!)

Watch France 24's remembrance of Sister Emmanuelle here.

--by Scott MacLeod/Cairo