Upon nearing Mianzhu, brightly colored painting begin to appear on the white walls. My translator tells me this is Mianzhu’s specialty, “Almost everyone in the area can draw,” she says, “people from around Sichuan hire them to paint murals on walls.”

A painted wall in Mianzhu, damaged in the earthquake
As in other places in the quake zone, the total destruction of human structures is disconcertingly surrounded by untouched natural scenery. The first town we stopped in grew Asian pears, or pear-apples, in vast, well-tended orchards. Rice paddies stretched into the distance. This time of year, the rice stalks have grow to about seven inches tall, obscuring the water they grow in so rice paddies look like terraced fields of brilliant grass. Yet the rice is too uniform, too well spaced to be natural grass; in the fall each sprig of rice is hand planted in a meticulous grid. Whole house demolished in seconds, but not one rice plant out of place.

Rice paddies

Hats for sale

Animals decorate a rooftop
Many tents, especially improvised tents, are set in the midst of the rubble. At first, I could not understand such a decision. Not only does pitching a tent in the rubble require clearing a space, it seemed to me it would only exacerbate the pain of living everyday amidst the ruins of ‘life before’. I was surprised to find that the old cement floors of decimated houses are usually undamaged and thus provide the only flat, dry surface in the area.

Tents pitch in rubble

All over the earthquake zone there are tens of thousands of prefab houses being hurriedly constructed. These houses go up in just hours, whole villages built in a week. I have yet to see any prefabs inhabited, but in many places residents tell us they are only days from completion. When finished, they will provide residents shelter with electricity, running water, and a functioning sewer system. Then long term reconstruction will begin.

A prefab village nearing completion