From the 23rd floor of the Sunnypark Mall building in Pretoria, Thifhindulwi Divhula can see the Union Buildings to the left, Loftus Versfeld rugby stadium to the right, and the Mediclinic Heart Hospital neatly between them.

"That's where [Nelson] Mandela was inaugurated. You see? And there's Loftus. Remember the 1995 Rugby World Cup?" Divhula says. He means it symbolically because the final was played at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.

The streets outside the hospital where the former president is being treated hums with activity: scores of news crews, from Mexico to China, line Celliers Street.

At the wall outside the entrance to the hospital there are perhaps 100 well-wishers and curious bystanders taking pictures of the display of tributes with their cellphones, or reading the letters written to Mandela.

Journalists are interviewing those who come to leave a bouquet of flowers or a card. A lone candle burns in the sunshine.

Around the corner, photographers stalk the hospital's back entrance, which the Mandela family uses.

It is a far cry from the scenes Divhula saw two weeks ago, just after Mandela was rushed to hospital. Then, a lone bouquet of flowers lay limply under a tree: proteas and strelitzias, symbolising the old South Africa and the new.

Apprehension and concern
But that was before Mandela's condition became critical. Now, there are many more who go down to the wall outside the hospital to pay tribute to the man being treated inside.

Divhula takes a regular stroll from his flat – situated at the top of the multipurpose structure that also houses the Holiday Inn – to the window at the end of the passage, where he scours the streets below for signs that Mandela's condition might have changed.

Armed with his binoculars, Divhula watches the activity outside the hospital with apprehension and concern. He says he hurried down to the hospital gates when he noticed a surge in activity outside the main entrance this week.

Divhula grew up north of Pretoria in the former Venda homeland, where work was scarce, he says. 

But the lack of economic activity was an advantage because "it forced us to stay at school. There was nothing else to do." He is now a statistician. 

It was near the former Venda capital, Thohoyandou, where he first saw Mandela. He had just been released from prison and was touring the country. He had recently addressed a crowd in Durban.

Divhula clears his throat in preparation for his well-rehearsed Mandela impersonation: "Take your knives, your guns and your pangas, and throw them into the sea!"

Mandela came to what is now called Limpopo shortly after uttering those words. Divhula squeezed into the back of the stadium just in time to see Mandela appear on stage.

Trepidation he feels
"And he raised his right hand and said ‘Amandla', and that was the last thing I heard. When Mandela raised his hand, people just went mad.

"You know the event organisers in those days, they brought their lousy sound systems. I wish I had rather watched it on the television," says Divhula.

Back at the hospital in Pretoria, Rene Risch has brought his two sons to see the wall outside the hospital. He shows them the flowers, balloons, letters, posters and art. Cameramen hurry to hear his story.

Risch, like many of those who wrote tributes to Mandela, has come here to give physical expression to the deep affection he feels for the former statesman, and the trepidation he feels about his hospitalisation.

He has also brought his sons to see the wall so that they can have a memory of Mandela when they get older.

"My two-year-old is too young, but my four-year-old will remember this moment in history. And when he learns about Mandela at school one day, I want him to be able to tell his classmates that he was here, at the place Mandela was hospitalised," Risch says.

"As a parent it's my responsibility to give him that memory. I want him to get a sense of who Mandela is, and the love and outpouring of compassion for him here at the hospital, so that he will understand Mandela's values one day when I teach them to him. I want my children to have good morals."

Portrait of Mandela
He kneels down near a bunch of flowers. To his right, Nebani Sirenje, a Zimbabwean-born artist, is painting a portrait of Mandela on an easel.

Two more paintings bearing Mandela's face lean against the wall, drying in the sun. Today, these paintings are not for sale.

"We are here to celebrate his [Mandela's] life. It wouldn't be appropriate to sell these paintings," says Sirenje.

A group of women, who call themselves the Wailing Women of the World, have come to pray for Mandela. Delight Omoike is a missionary from Nigeria and a longstanding member of their group.

They have come to the hospital "on an assignment from God". They believe Mandela is God's vessel, although they remain nonplussed by his rumoured atheism.

"God doesn't need a man's permission to use him," Omoike insists.

Also outside the hospital is Portuguese reporter Antonio Mateus, who has made a career out of Madiba. He lived in South Africa for 10 years, covering Mandela's release from prison, his presidency, and his retirement from politics. 

Since then, he made a brief return to Portugal. But his eyes and ears have never left Mandela and with the former president's admission to hospital on June 8, Mateus found himself back in the country.

'I cried'
​"I was at Mandela's inauguration," he said, excitedly.

"I cried. And years later, when I watched Invictus, I cried again. I met my wife while I was following Mandela around. I fell in love with your country, too."

With the help of his binoculars, Divhura zooms in on another prayer group approaching the hospital.

As he turns his eye to the Union Buildings, he says: "I was so excited to see Mandela. He was so fresh; he had no baggage. He's a good man, you know."