"Mumuh," Sister Elena Pia Frongia, is originally from Sardinia, Italy. Forty-one years have glided by since the nun, then twenty-six years old, first began to minister to the Nalo tribe in Chienshih Village, northern Taiwan. Time has turned her hair gray, but her selfless devotion remains constant.

As the warm autumn sun slanted into the groves, the reeds that swayed in the breeze caught the golden sunlight. Sometimes bits of dust floated on the breeze and settled on Mumuh's spotless white skirt. Though skinny and aged, she walked on the steep mountain trails with a lively, agile gait.

"Aren't you tired, Mumuh? Would you like to take a rest?" We, who were in our twenties or thirties, were all out of breath.

"No, no, I'm fine. I'm quite familiar with this trail," she answered with ease. "Before, there weren't even any trails. We had to walk straight through the bush to reach the village."

A haggard, middle-aged man who lived deep in the mountains sat on the edge of his bed and complained to Mumuh about his pains. "It's so cold. I suffer from gout and the flu. I feel awful having to stay in bed all day long."

"May God bless you. With God's blessing, you'll recover soon," Mumuh gently consoled him. When she first came to this place, this middle-aged man was only an eleven-year-old boy. Now he has entered the fifth decade of his life, but in Mumuh's eyes, he is still a child who needs to be cared for.

This is Mumuh--she can scale mountains and ford streams just to show her care for a single person.

Everyone's "Mumuh"

Mumuh--Sister Elena Pia Frongia, who is also known by her Chinese name Chao Hsiu-jung--is from far-off Sardinia, Italy. She has spent a larger portion of her life in Chienshih Village than in her own hometown. Forty-one years have glided by since the nun, then twenty-six years old, first arrived in the village. Time has turned her hair gray, but her selfless devotion remains constant.

"Mumuh" is the name given her by the local aborigines. To the members of the Nalo tribe, Mumuh is like their mother. She is always busy taking care of her "children."

I went several times to interview her, and she always told me, "If anyone needs my help, I will have to cancel our appointment. My time does not belong to me--it belongs to everyone." Mumuh has lived among the Nalo for such a long time that she has even picked up their accent.

The second time I visited her, she was busy consoling a depressed woman over the telephone. The day before yesterday, she found out that the woman was thinking of suicide, so she spent the whole night comforting her. Deeply concerned, Mumuh could not fall asleep after the telephone conversation with the woman. During our interview, she kept saying, "I wonder if she's feeling better now. I'm so afraid that she might be beset by depression again."

Mumuh's mind is always on her "children." Wherever anyone is sick, feels lonesome, has a squabble with their spouse, or gets hurt, she is sure to be there to help them. As soon as these suffering people hear her soft voice, their hearts become calm and peaceful.

"One day after a drunken man beat up his wife," remembered Hsia Yueh-mei, a local inhabitant, "the wife went with her little child to Mumuh's place for help." Because Mumuh has always shown care and concern for the man since he was a little boy, he has looked upon her as his mother. "When Mumuh went to talk with the man, he confessed his wrongdoing and promised he would never beat his wife again."

Hsia added that Mumuh really treats everyone as her own children. When young men in the tribe get married, she even sews their wedding costumes for them. "Mumuh made my wedding dress for me. She also got necklaces and flowers ready for me as if she were marrying off her own daughter."

This is how Mumuh takes care of the people in the Nalo tribe.

Big children and little grandchildren

Other than these big children, Mumuh also has a group of grandchildren to take care of.

At St. Francis Kindergarten, children were learning their native language from their teachers. "Yaba is father, Yaya is mother, Yaki is grandmother."

This is another place to which Mumuh has dedicated her life. Here more than fifty children, ranging from two to seven years old, learn the aborigines' native language, the local culture, etiquette and customs. "People must not forget their own culture. We must let children learn about their roots."

At 2:30 p.m., my interview with Mumuh was interrupted because it was snack time for the kindergarten. Mumuh prepares snacks for the children every day. "Sometimes we have cookies and milk, sometimes bread, fruit and soybean milk. We make it a point to offer the children good food, because they don't necessarily have good food to eat at home." Mumuh sounded as if she were these children's grandma.

When Mumuh brought out the sweet-smelling snacks, all the kindergartners waited with open, watering mouths. But they could not eat the snacks until they had said grace with Mumuh. "Have some too, Mumuh." The children politely and "generously" invited her to eat with them.

Big, dark eyes and rosy cheeks are common features of these aboriginal children. We could hardly resist the temptation to hug them. "Look at these lovely children! They are the reason why I can never bear to leave this place..." With a loving smile, Mumuh began to relate a story that went back to half a century ago.

Far-off Sardinia

When Mumuh was still a little child, she liked to put on her mother's clothes, wrap her head in a towel, and pretend to be a Catholic nun. The notion, though unclear, surfaced in her mind: "One day I will dedicate myself to God and serve in the remotest and poorest places."

As years went by, this aspiration of hers grew more and more firm. When she was twenty-one years old, she quit her job as a nurse and went to the outlying countryside to serve the poor.

"There in the countryside, I could not help feeling that I was not doing enough. I believed there must be poorer places in need of my help. One day a priest who was also working in a remote place came to visit me. Looking at his mud-stained white clothes and worn-out straw sandals, I was touched. So I said to God I wanted to be like him."

The priest told her that some secluded mountain areas in Taiwan were beset by poverty. Therefore she resolved to come to the island, no matter how long and arduous the journey might be. She was only twenty-six at that time.

Mumuh first went to Hengshan Village, Hsinchu County, in northern Taiwan. Most of the inhabitants there were Hakka people. In order to merge into the local life, Mumuh served the village people by day and studied both Hakka and Mandarin Chinese by night. In less than a year, she could speak fluent Hakka and Mandarin. A local priest gave her the Chinese name, Chao Hsiu-jung.

Several years later, she had a chance to go to Chienshih Village to help organize some church activities. A scene she saw there greatly moved her.

"I saw an aboriginal woman dressed in rags surrounded by a large cluster of children. She carried another child on her back. Wearing next to nothing, the children looked dirty all over. But they all had big, bright eyes and they looked so innocent and lovely. I didn't know why, but I felt very close to them..."

Attracted to the poor, simple life of the aborigines, Mumuh made a resolution to serve at Chienshih Village. Later when she learned that the Nalo tribe was in need of a nun who could work there for an extended period of time, she jumped at the chance.

A nun with unwavering determination

In the sixties, Taiwan was still rather backward, and the remote mountain areas were even poorer. In 1967, Mumuh finally came to the Nalo tribe. Their village was a primitive place with no water, electricity, roads, or bus services. Every time she visited the tribespeople, all she could rely on were her feet, a broad-brimmed straw hat, and a bamboo cane.

"It usually took me a week to visit all of Chienshih Village. I didn't have enough clothes to change. If I washed my clothes during the night, they wouldn't be dry the next morning. So I carried my clothes on a bamboo pole while I walked to the next destination. By the time I got to the next place, they were dry."

Just like this, the nun trekked over high mountains and crossed rapid streams. Browsing through the old photographs she showed us, we saw a much younger Mumuh, in her twenties or thirties, with a straw hat on her head and a bamboo pole and a bag in her hands, walking alone in desolate places. Her lean figure appeared even smaller and lonelier among the high mountains in the photographs. The scene touched the deepest chord in me--I guess it was her undaunted, unselfish love that moved me.

In addition to these hardships, Mumuh also had to watch out for poisonous snakes and wild beasts on the trails. "One time when I was resting under a tree, I suddenly felt something cold gliding on my feet. I saw an umbrella snake [one of the four most venomous species of snakes in Taiwan] sliding by me. I was so scared that I completely froze."

Mumuh said she once even saw a two-meter-long cobra crawling in front of her. Maybe because God was protecting her, she had always escaped from danger unscathed.

No matter how far it was, she always managed to deliver necessities like firewood, rice and soy sauce to needy people on time. She also helped families with their children's tuition and assisted sick people in seeking medical treatment. As long as anyone needed her help, she was always ready to give it.

A good education leads to a better life

In addition to providing relief for local aborigines, Mumuh also tried to improve the quality of their lives in more fundamental ways. She set up a sewing class to teach local women knitting and sewing skills. She made bamboo cradles for women to put their babies in while they were learning these skills. Under Mumuh's long-term guidance, many of the women even opened their own dressmaking shops and went out of the village to solicit business.

At that time, most aborigines who lived deep in the mountains thought little of education. At first, only some ten children came to St. Francis Kindergarten. Most children just idled away their time in the valleys. In order to change the aborigines' views about education, Mumuh drafted teaching policies for the kindergarten and tried to make local people aware of the importance of education.

She went from door to door to ask parents to send their children to the kindergarten. She also raised money to buy a small school bus to transport children to and from school. Even though more children started coming to the kindergarten, after some time many of them stopped. She asked their parents why, and they answered with embarrassment, "We can't afford the tuition. Our kids don't dare to go even if they want to." "Just send your children to school, and don't worry about the tuition," she told them.

Even now, most of the children who come to the kindergarten receive "free" education. Some families have four or five children studying here for free. Some families have been unable to pay the school fees since the time the parents attended the kindergarten.

"Sister sets high store by children's education," said Ku Hui-ling, a teacher at St. Francis Kindergarten. "She thinks that a good foundation should be laid before children reach school age. She also pays a lot of attention to good manners, the correct attitudes one should have in dealing with people, and the native culture. She has had them all integrated into our courses."

In 1994, Mumuh built a two-story activity center by the kindergarten where local aboriginal youths and students study and spend their leisure time. In addition to organizing different free lessons every week, she also bought computers for these young people to use.

During winter and summer vacations and other holidays, Mumuh also holds activities to provide proper entertainment for teenagers and children. "People used to be more simple and honest, and there were fewer juvenile problems. But now our children face temptations everywhere. It's easy for them to learn bad things from television and society. The reason I hold those activities is to encourage them to pay more attention to their studies and behave properly."

Spreading love

Mumuh said modestly that it was due to the help of many kind-hearted people in our society that she could do so many things; Tzu Chi volunteers had especially helped her a lot.

In 1993, she went to a framing shop owned by a Tzu Chi volunteer, Chang Sun-chun, who had already heard of Mumuh and her touching stories. He gave her a special discount and donated NT$1,000 [US$33] to her.

Later, when they learned that Mumuh was raising money to buy a school bus for St. Francis Kindergarten and to build the Nalo Youth Activity Center, Chang and several other Tzu Chi commissioners who lived in Hsinchu helped as much as they could to raise funds for Mumuh. Because of their assistance, Mumuh's wish came true much sooner.

After that, every time Tzu Chi volunteers visited aid recipients in the mountains near Chienshih, they would always go visit Mumuh and deliver rice, cooking oil, salt, children's clothes, toys and snacks. Mumuh also referred needy people whom she was unable to help to Tzu Chi.

"I have known these Tzu Chi people for only seven years, but I feel as if I have known them for twenty or thirty years," said Mumuh.

Her humanitarian spirit drew the volunteers towards her and inspired them to do their best to help her carry out her ideals. "Mumuh is like our mother," said Tzu Chi volunteer Li Meng-yu. "Every time we visit her, she always reminds us to put on more clothes because it's chilly in the mountains."

More than forty years have passed since Mumuh came to Taiwan. Although she is almost seventy, she still has a lot of things that she wants to do. In order to spread love and recruit more helping hands, she established a Youth Society and a Middle-Aged People's Society and invited local people to work as volunteers and help their fellow villagers.

"People often ask me when I will retire. I always answer I will retire the day I go to heaven. When that day comes, I know the people in the village will take over my work and continue to help those in need."

There is a poem on a poster in the St. Francis Kindergarten:

I am very old now,
And I will soon die quietly in the woods.
In the night you will hear sounds
Coming from the dark woods.
Don't be afraid then, my children.
That's me coming back to see you.

The poem deeply touched me. I do not know who wrote it, but think it describes Mumuh very well. When she goes to heaven, she will still come back spiritually. Her love will always be with the Nalo people.