Mohamed and I turn right into a quiet open-air parking lot in Mitchell's Plain town centre. ‘It's not safe here,’ he remarks as I park beneath a twisted wind-swept eucalyptus tree. As we climb out, I suddenly feel exposed – though I’m not sure to whom or what. We walk briskly across the parking lot into a busy business complex. Once inside I breathe a sigh of relief. Along the narrow, pedestrianised streets of the town centre are the familiar ramshackle Somali shops and businesses that I recognise from Bellville. Trickles of grey water, accompanied by the sharp odour of raw sewage, leak across the street. Faint wafts of incense and disinfectant mask it, but not entirely. Mohamed and I climb a dark stairway, which leads us up to an apartment located along a dimly lit corridor. ‘The person I want you to speak to knows a lot about Khayelitsha,’ he has told me.

Hassan opens the door. He's thick-boned with dark glowing skin and twinkling eyes. He enthusiastically welcomes us into his sparsely furnished one-bedroomed apartment, chatting constantly, bursting with thoughts and opinions. In the process I forget to take my shoes off, as is customary in Somali homes, and follow Hassan straight into his bedroom, which he shares with two housemates. I guiltily think of the sewage-laced street outdoors as I seat myself awkwardly on one of three single beds in the room, trying to ensure that my shoes barely touch the ground. My host is too polite to ask me to remove them, and I am too embarrassed by this time to offer. I hope that by ignoring my lapse, it will be less noticeable.

After settling down and introducing ourselves, Hassan opens up about his experiences of life in Khayelitsha. ‘I can give you everything from A to Z,’ he says, and proceeds to fire off words in rapid succession. In many respects Hassan has fond recollections of life in the township. ‘Khayelitsha is the only area where at least we have a friendship with the black people. At least it's somewhere I can go any time.’ However, unlike Mohamed's depiction of Khayelitsha, the peacefulness that Hassan describes has less to do with the absence of violent crime, and more with his relationship with local residents.