The anti-apartheid icon spent his second day in hospital for a recurring lung infection on Friday.

President Jacob Zuma has said not to panic but also that Mandela is “not that young” and to start preparing for the day he goes “home”.

“In Zulu, when someone passes away who is very old, people say he or she has gone home,” he told the BBC.

“I think those are some of the things we should be thinking about.”

It is Mandela’s third hospital stay since December and his second this month.

“I didn’t expect him to go back so quickly,” admitted Cape Town security guard Arthur Davids.

Mandela’s release from 27 years of apartheid jail in 1990 signalled the end of decades of white minority domination over the majority black population.

“Because of him, I have the opportunity that I was not previously advantaged with,” said Xolani Sibyia in Durban.

“So I would say Mandela we love you, we wish you a speedy recovery. Everything for you Mandela.”

But locals have also become more accustomed to his bouts of ill health, as the revered statesman lives out his retirement far from the public eye.

Hospitalisations that once put the nation on edge are now acknowledged with sadness but acceptance.

“I think it is less of a shock because you associate it with age,” said Ajith Deena in Cape Town.

The inevitable is dreaded and would be a huge loss for South Africa but had to be accepted, he said.

“That’s a natural process of life.”

Mandela is still widely adored as a moral beacon in a less-glossy time of South Africa’s democracy after its celebratory march into all-race freedom in 1994.

“He’s our icon, he’s our hero,” Leko Msimang told AFP on the streets of port city Durban.

“In our minds he’ll live forever so anything to the contrary, we tend to shut away.”

For Thumeka Mketsu in Cape Town, his death would throw the world into disarray.

Mandela was “our president” and “our god”, she said.

“We still admire him as our president.”

Theories used to be punted that Mandela was the only glue that held South Africa together and that chaos would follow his death.

Locals still think that there will be aftershocks but also link this to much-dented, modern South Africa.

From furores over the police’s use of deadly force to multi-million dollar security upgrade of President Jacob Zuma’s private home, frustrations run high.

Added to this are rampant joblessness and unfulfilled promises of democracy.

“He is the voice that holds the country together,” said Kasturi Pandaram, also in Durban.

“He’s been a stalwart and I think if anything should happen to him now, with the state the country is in, I think it’s going to fall apart.”

Maria, 60, who did not want to give her surname, said Mandela should now be left be.

“His life was based on dignity and strength, moral and spiritually, and now let him die the way he lived. Quiet and peacefully,” she told AFP in Cape Town.