Earthquake-devastated Nepal struggles to rebuild

In many ways, the Nepal I see now isn't very different from the one I leftshortly after last April's earthquake. People still live in the ruins of theirformer housesor in temporary shelters brought in by aid organizations.

International donors including Canada pledged $4.4billion US inassistance last spring, of which $2.8billion US has been paid out to NGOs orto the Nepalese government.

But until this week,NGOshave been preventedfrom building replacement houses, and the government has not handed outany of the $2,000 US it promised each family to help rebuild.So, the rubble remains in Kathmandu and throughout the affected zone.

Thousands of people are living in the remains of their former houses, still waitingfor help.

Basic services are stillin short supply.

In some places, water is available. In others, the nearest working well is a two-or three-hour walk away.

Other services are also in short supply. For months, a political crisis andprotests made crossings from neighbouring India impassible, leading to ashortage of food, medicine and building supplies.

Recovery has been hardest in rural areas.

For the past year, the Bhattari family has been living under corrugatedmetal donated by aid group Plan International, on the site of their destroyedhouse in the village of Sikharpur.

Both parents and their four children survived the earthquake and itsaftershocks, but they have struggled to rebuild their lives since.

Maiya Bhattari smiles thinly. "I now think we are going to spend all our livesliving like this," she says. "We don't have money to rebuild or to do anythingelse. I wish we had died in the earthquake. I have thought that manytimes."

Some build housesfrom the rubbleof their original homes.

Down the road, I find Rudra Dhital building a shelter from the stones andmud left from his old house. He's waited a year for help from thegovernment, but says he can't wait any longer.

"The monsoons are coming soon and I need to build a small shelter tosurvive," Dhital says. "If we get another big earthquake, I'm sure that thishouse will not last. It will fall on top of us. But what else can I do?"

Life in Kathmanduhasn't gotten easier for many.

There is a similar sense of desperation in a dusty lot in the middle ofKathmandu, still home to thousands who have lived here since theearthquake.

Their old homes were destroyed and they cannot afford to rebuild or rent ina city where apartments and rooms are expensive and hard to find.

They have built their lives under donated tarps and scavenged bits ofbamboo.

And those who can, work here.

There are even gardens to grow potatoes, onions and other vegetables.Bikram Tamang has been here so long, he's on his second crop. "People aresad because they think another earthquake is coming and they think, Howcan we go anywhere else? Where else can we go?"

Several hours' drive outside Kathmandu, in the district of Sindhupalchowk, anentire village of solid new temporary houses has been built,withpermanent ones about to follow.

Canadian donations are making a difference.

With funding from the Canadian government, local villagers are beingtrained to put up sturdy brick walls and roofs that are less likely to collapsein another earthquake.

NGOs have not been allowed to start building permanenthouses, but there's plenty of construction because of temporary ones and training.

But the joy and optimism here arepalpable. The children's shrieks echo in thewindowless shells.

Young ones have been remembering and talking about the earthquakeall year.

The adults have, too, and they are just as eager to have a permanent roofover their heads. This woman cooks with pots bought with Canadiandonations.

But for most survivors,life since the earthquake has not changed.

Still, for most earthquake survivors in Nepal, life is not coming together withnearly this much hope or certainty. They are still in the rubble.

They live under metal sheets or plastic tarps weighed down with rocks,surrounded by walls they hope won't fall on them or wash away with thecoming monsoons.

And in most cases, they can't believe they are stillwaiting for help from their government to rebuild.

Photos by CBC News reporterSaa Petricic. To see more of Saa's photographs, follow him onInstagram