The Women Who Wash Our Dead
Reporter Rowaida Abdelaziz was 21 the first time she watched a body lowered into a grave. Her cousin, a young mother, died just days before her 33rd birthday. No one knew what to do in that moment of unthinkable grief. All they knew was that someone had to make the arrangements. That's when a woman named Howaida stepped in. On this episode, reporter Rowaida Abdelaziz travels across New Jersey and Cairo looking for the women who carry out one of the most intimate obligations in Islam: washing the bodies of our dead.