Nepal, July 23 -- Every monsoon, the Manohara River comes closer to Jima Sherpa's home. When it rains for days, she stays awake at night, fearfully anticipating the sound of water breaking through her walls.

"It enters our rooms," she says, "Our food gets ruined. We lift what we can, but some things, you just have to let go."

Sherpa is 60 years old. She came here from Dolakha about twenty years ago. She wanted her children to study in Kathmandu and escape high rents. She and her family built a house on land near the river that was previously empty.

"We came for the children's education," she says. "The land wasn't ours, but it was empty. So we made it our home."

Two decades later, life by the river still feels uncertain.

Outside the ...