Patan

Rubey Maharjan's cafe lies tucked away down a quiet alley on the edge of Patan Durbar Square. Along the cafe's interior right wall lies a massive mural, a multicolored, multipatterned Buddha. This brilliant painting took three men and four and a half months to complete. Its abstract curves and cubes symbolize the Buddha's path to enlightenment. Just below the Buddha's swirly, black and white topknot, a piece of reflective tape crops the painting, cutting horizontally across, then dropping vertically, framing Buddha's head. This tape is a grim reminder of Nepal's 2015 earthquake. Luckily the cafe only suffered minor damage, a crack small enough to cover in tape, but many others were not so lucky.

When the earthquake hit, Rubey was at home with his family. Rubble and dust lay everywhere, like a “bombardment”, he told me. He quickly grabbed his family and “ran down like hell”. Although they were physically unharmed, the earthquake left deeper marks. “Home is like a person, we all got traumatized,” he said, recalling the aftermath.

Fearing for his cafe staff, he snuck out of his family's home to check on them. Luckily, all were safe and the only damage was the crack along the mural. During the subsequent aftershocks, he witnessed the “floor like waves”. Even with this trauma, Rubey remains resilient.

Volunteers quickly went to work to deal with collapsed homes and injured people. Foreigners and Nepalis worked together to aid the needy. For many, though, reconstruction has been slow. The only major help has been done in Bungamati, an ancient village on the edge of the Kathmandu Valley. “Recovery”, said Rubey, “hasn't even really started”.

The taped-up crack in the wall remains as a reminder of earth's destructive power. In Patan, an ancient city of artisans who have been crafting similar designs for thousands of years, Rubey's mural is strikingly unique. Sometimes guests question the mural's radical portrayal of the Buddha. They aren't angry, but they simply ask “why?”

Even in this ancient, traditional city, things are changing. Buddha's many colors reflect a creative, resilient artist. Patan, and the rest of Nepal, will recover with the support of its many dedicated residents.

Chisopani

Bungamati

Each day, Iragansh Shakya climbs the wobbly stairs of her earthquake-damaged home to pray to a buddha shrine in the corner of this third floor room. Buddha's body is stained red from the paste she applies to its form, a testament to her devout ties. The mud floor shakes as we walk. Part of the right-hand wall is collapsed. Where brick once laid is now an opening to the sunshine outside, a reminder of nature's never ending influence. Although she no longer sleeps in this ancestral home, it remains a daily reminder of the April 2015 earthquake's destruction.

Iragansh is 74 years old. As the earthquake shook her home apart, she ran outside in time to see Bungamati's temple collapse. By the time the second quake came, her sons had left due to family disputes. She spent four days in the hospital with spine problems, which were assuaged by international aid workers. In the past year, her family managed to build a new home adjacent to the other one. A widow, she is trapped spending all her money on a mentally disabled son. She holds hopes in her prayers, although many of her children have since left.

Nepali aid often faces difficulty in implementation. While Nepalis are receptive to foreign aid, their own government often fails to support its people. Aid groups came and went, and she was left with a small sum of rupees, not enough to support the destruction she faced. Across Bungamati I heard similar stories. Aid distribution remains shoddy, partly due to a shaky government's influences. Some believe money trickled through the government ends up in the pockets of government officials, rather than to its needy citizens. NGO and local help seem more productive, but still slow moving.

Bungamati lies at the edge of the Kathmandu valley, close to the Himalayan foothills. Carefully crafted woodcarvings that outline its homes' rooves and windows represent the village's Newari craftsman history. Newaris are considered the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu valley. Their language and culture dominate Hindu and Buddhist traditions central to Nepali life. This ancient history must be matched with rigorous rebuilding efforts to preserve it.

Throughout the village, empty homes lie standing or crumbling. They are too dangerous to live in, too expensive to take down. They stand as daily reminders to the villager's suffering. Now, most of Bungamati's residents live in temporary shelters, even one and a half years later. They are small aluminum siding homes, one room, and stand strong in the summer monsoon. One family moved out from their brick and mud home immediately after the earthquake struck, and spent the next three days building the shelter they still call home. Others have moved to their fields, down the hill, many into the 297 plywood structures the NGO Danish People's Aid built last year. Although the NGO promised many more homes, government disputes prevented their implementation. To villagers, there is no hope for aid anymore. Their help must come from within.

Ouside Iragansh's home, through a courtyard, past vast piles of bricks, a team of village men and women press together bricks with cement. They are at the start of a years long project of temple construction. In the hot Nepali sun, they build their structure against a backdrop of collapsing homes. One building's floors have completely fallen through, leaving just an open facade, with window frames that show the color of the sky. These community members will continue to stare at the destruction until their project is complete. To these resilient Nepalis, carrying on is the only choice, one day at a time, one brick at a time.