Nepal's villages devastated by quake 02:15

Still, passing through villages it's clear that damage has been suffered. In Ravi Opi a village official walks quickly by, telling us over his shoulder that 90% of the houses are currently uninhabitable. Some are still standing, but seem precarious and the residents are too scared of aftershocks to move back inside.

Patchy reports have filtered through of entire villages leveled by the quake or engulfed by landslides.

    No, no government has any support for us. No one has come out to see that we're living like this.

    Osminda Koirale

Maili Tamang, 62, is alive, but surveys the desolation the quake has wreaked on her life. We find her sitting as close as she can to the ruins of the house that she built with her late husband. She's petite and frail but hardened by life. Her leg, bandaged and suppurating, is stretched out in front of her. She periodically flicks at the flies that have settled on the blood- and pus-soaked dressing.

"I just want to cry, all I feel is hurt " she says, showing us where she was the moment the earthquake struck.

Tamang's house was one of the bigger ones in this region, a rare two-story structure. She and her husband built it together, a lifetime ago. He died years ago, but her extended family lived here with her until Saturday. She, along with her daughter-in-law were indoors when the quake struck, and she was lucky to make it out onto a small wooden balcony. Another tremor brought this down and she had to extricate herself from the rubble and crawl up an embankment. The younger woman, trapped in the wreckage after the roof fell in on her, eventually clawed her way out.

She was transported by motorbike -- few here have motorized transportation; most walk -- to a missionary hospital in a neighboring village, 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) away from here. Now she is back, wondering what the next step for her is.

Back on their feet -- but only just

Throughout this region, there have been small landslides and people have been industrious in clearing rubble from the roads. There is little sign of aid having made it out here. Out of necessity people are back working their fields. Near the road a family makes lunch in the open as their house was destroyed.

Elsewhere in Ravi Opi, other unfortunate families count the cost of the disaster. Mahesh Koiraba, 31, lost his only daughter, Prati in the quake, who was killed as their house collapsed. She was 2 years old. He was working when the quake hit, tilling the fields like so many in Kavre, and ran back to his house after quickly realizing the force of the tremor.