A grim sense of purpose

Cantabrians are a wry lot. It's been 21 months since the 7.0 earthquake and 16 months since its hitman aftershock that flattened much of the city. And yet Christhchurch is still very much in the deconstruction mode.

For the tens of thousands of people who are still living in damaged homes, the frustrations are palpable: waiting for insurance companies to pay up, being given the OK to rebuild, finding contractors to do the patch-ups. It's all moving at a snail's pace. (Every time there is an aftershock above 5.0 the insurance clock resets.) And while these frustrations have mutated into anger or even depression, there is a sort of gallows humor that has developed as an antidote.

I was visiting an elderly couple today. I noticed a sledgehammer in their entranceway. The woman, seeing my quizzical look, said, "Please excuse the mallet. It's not for decorative purposes, you understand. It's so we can smash our way out if there's another big one."

She then proceeded to give me a tour of the cracks and warped beams in their home, ending by saying, "Of course we've got it a lot better than most." They have no choice, with their financial situation, but to wait until things can be put back together.

Still deconstructing.

The cranes that loom over Christchurch are still tearing buildings down. The noises of work you here are all the sounds of knocking down, finishing the jobs the quakes started. Sure, some new neighborhoods are being built. But thousands of people are living in their garages or tents or are in "temporary" situations that they don't see becoming permanent for years.

I asked another guy if his house had been damaged. "Oh yeah, lots of cracks, mate," he said." But with a bit of duct tape the snow doesn't get in. It's all good."

Stiff upper lip.

The city has settled so well into the "new normal," with people going off to work, school kids back in their classrooms, that you can forget - for a few minutes. Then you come around a corner and see the ugly scars of yet another building lying in tatters. Fenced off. Waiting, waiting.

The hollowed-out churches, the vanished Central Business District, the memories that are left only to the imagination haunt you in this city of ghosts. It would be so easy to just be permanently sad here, but it is the spirit of the people that keep each other buoyed. They are what makes Christchurch and will be its backbone, whatever form the new city takes in the months and years and decades to come.