This day last year was a normal Sunday in Haiti. It wasn't that nice; people still struggled to scrape survival. It had always been thus. So it was 'normal'. Within three days – 12 January – nature intervened and an apocalypse unfolded that has left indelible imprints on survivors a full year later.

Marie Anne Lespinasse was upstairs in her office when she looked up from her computer and saw the wall racing across the floor in her direction. She had two seconds to dash to a backroom as the earthquake deformed the building with its tremors.

When she finally got out of the building with help from passers-by some time later she got a signal on her mobile phone and called her daughters in the US to tell them she was safe. Then her sister arrived and they went looking for the sister's husband. Three days later, they found him, dead amidst the rubble. He had gone down to the car in the basement of his office at 4.30 and if he had left then, he might have been saved. But for some reason he went back up to his office and was killed in the disaster which followed.

Virtually every person in Haiti has a similar story of heartbreak to tell. Tears well up and the memory of 12 January leaves a long shadow, not just with Marie Anne but everyone you meet. The country was already on its knees as one of the poorest in the world when the earthquake struck 362 days ago.

The country's capital Port-au-Prince was hit especially hard as the disaster killed the equivalent to the population of Cork (230,000) and left a similar amount of people to the population of Dublin (1.3 million) living in temporary settlements.

Nowhere is the current plight of Haitians better illustrated than in the middle of its capital.

The presidential palace and government building stand visibly fractured and dismembered from the earthquake, mirroring the impotence of the authorities now to handle its aftermath.

Across the road from the seat of power is a park which has become a temporary refuge for the thousands upon thousands of homeless thankful to have a plastic roof over their heads after seeing their houses turn into rubble.

Triple whammy

Following on from that fateful January day, the country suffered a further triple whammy during the year of a hurricane, a cholera outbreak and then rioting sparked by the firm whiff of corruption in the first round of the presidential elections.

Neither nature nor government seems to be giving the nine million inhabitants a break right now.

And yet, walking through the miles and miles of plastic and canvas-covered makeshift homes, you can't but be struck by the resilience of the people as they go about the daily business of staying alive. Every one of them has been hit by tragedy of some kind and most have lost virtually all of their belongings.

The great contradiction of these people is that the more put down they are by disaster, the more thankful they are for small mercies. In the Amonolie camp in the capital, one of the community leaders, Jeanvier Fritzner, admits: "Frankly, we are better off now than we were before the earthquake."

The foreign agencies which came provided clean water, sanitation facilities and educated the people on health issues. That was something pre-earthquake they hadn't got.

When you consider how downbeat Ireland has been since the demise of the Celtic Tiger lifestyle, you wonder how these people can look such catastrophe in the eye and still come up smiling.

"We get on with it," says grandmother Simone Calliste matter-of-factly. "That is all we can do."

She is now the head of a family of 12 after the earthquake destroyed her home and wiped out all her belongings.

You ask her what is her hope. It's a long shot, she says, but she hopes the next government will rise to the challenge of giving her children a future.

She hasn't got that now. Only three of her eight kids have gone to school. It would be progress if every child had the right to be educated, she adds.

Her sister died and part of her duty is to keep an eye on her niece, Estellane, who in turn has had to give up her career to mind her younger brothers and sisters in the temporary dwelling next door.

Interestingly, Simone will pose for a picture but the younger woman is afraid. Like many here, she believes you give away part of yourself in a photograph. That you are somehow sold on. As a person observing this encounter later declared as we were leaving the camp: "That's Haiti for you ? 85% Catholic but 100% voodoo."

Politics exercising minds

One thing exercising the minds of all Haitians as Wednesday's anniversary approaches is politics. Preliminary results last November in the first round of the presidential election had two candidates, former first lady Mirlande Manigat who is now 70, and businessman Jude Celestin of the governing Unity party, on top.

But Celestin is so widely disliked he could make Fianna Fáil appear as poll toppers again. Manigat and, in particular, the candidate who finished third, singer Michel Martelly, claim the election was marred by fraud. 'Sweet Mickey' as he is known, says he will not participate if Celestin is left in the contest.

Those results led to two days of serious rioting and the fear is that when the authorities finally announce how the second round of voting will operate and who will be involved, it will lead to a serious escalation of rioting and shooting. The delay in itself shows how unsure the government as well as the international community is about how to progress.

Talking about the election is one of the few times fear enters the eyes of the local people. They've had enough this past year without the disruption of street violence adding to their problems.

And they are impatient for the reconstruction of their houses and their lives. After the initial heroic response by international agencies to feeding and helping those displaced, the pace of rebuilding slowed to unacceptable levels.

Goal's director in Haiti Darren Hanniffy agrees with a recent Oxfam report criticising the government and the international community for failing to progress the reconstruction work.

"It has not been good enough and the people deserve better," he claims. He acknowledges though that key government people died in the disaster while the head and deputy head of the UN also perished.

Hanniffy flew in from Honduras, where he was then stationed, within hours of the earthquake to provide Goal's first footing in Haiti. The Irish agency's quick response saw it get personnel on board to feed 500,000 people in the immediate aftermath. Its actions have been so impressive that Goal was given an $11.5m contract with the US government to build shelters and provide clean water and sanitation.

"We progress well in the emergency phase because we rely on our own organisation and on good dynamic partners. But when it comes to the rebuilding of a country we must rely on and work at the pace of others," says Hanniffy. "The simple fact is that it is not easy. It is complicated, it is very political and there are lots of groups pulling in different directions. That is the phase we are in at the moment.

"The donors and international community did not focus on creating the solid platform of planning and civil works [roads, sanitation, etc] before jumping into the construction of houses. When a plan was developed for the repair and reconstruction of Port-au-Prince, the government did not simply approve it and take ownership of it. This is all that was required to allow the aid organisations to proceed with the plan. This process is now stuck in the quagmire of the election process."

One year on from the apocalypse, in many ways Haiti is no further on from that horrific day. This has been the history of the country. The fact that no big names are due to fly in to mark the first anniversary of the disaster or promote a renewed appeal on the country's behalf is an indication of the paralysis that holds these people back. They deserve so much better.

'The Spirit of Haiti' is a photographic exhibition to mark the first anniversary of the earthquake, as captured by some of Ireland's leading photographers during a trip there last October. It will be launched at 6.30pm on Tuesday 11 January at the Irish Aid Volunteering and Information Centre, 27-31 Upper O'Connell Street, Dublin 1