Blue smoke lifts lazily from the thatched roof of the hut where Mandla lives. The hut consists of one large wattle-and-daub structure with a springy cow dung floor. There is a pine table and chairs, two small porthole-like rounded windows stuffed closed with cloth, a blackened burning brazier, and a wooden box containing clothing and personal belongings. Against the back wall is a handmade kitchen cupboard displaying cups, saucers and enamel plates. A rickety iron frame bed for Bhut’ Ntuthu and Mam’ Tazie is pushed against the wall, and on the floor reed sleeping mats for Mandla and the other children. This is where Mandla disappears to at night.

Mam’ Tazie lights her fire inside, in the middle of the hollowed out dungsmeared fireplace. As I approach, I watch the heavy wood-smoke moving upwards, escaping the thatched roof, snaking away, dissipating into the sky painted as blue as isishweshwe cloth.

Summer sun rising, we make our way, aged fifteen. Mandla and I chat excitedly as we approach Otter Pool. Matted with weeping willows, the Tsitsa waters are mysterious, mythical … dancing figures jump up at us.

‘Can you see it? There it is …’

‘No it's not …’

‘There it is …’ I say, pointing into the blue depths, reflecting mythical dancers darting this way and that.

And so we continue, catching glimpses of this imagined unseen life, existing below the surface.

‘Hayi wena, looks like a big old trout to me, perhaps it's an eel,’ Mandla concludes. But rumour has it that the pool is sacred, that an umXhosa King was buried here a long time ago, slipping quietly away to his new, golden Kingdom.

This pool, our secret pool, is deep, with thickly stacked river reeds growing on the far side, a shared home to noisy yellow weaver birds and other creatures. That's where he lives, where we spot him: shimmering, black, secretive, shining water droplet diamonds, fat and sleek. That's why we call this pool, Otter Pool.

‘Matthew, you should be careful of swimming in that river – it could be dangerous,’ Ma warns, packing a picnic lunch for us.