Across the street from his gutted shop, Bashar Aden goes collecting. He heads to the yard of one of his former customers and asks for the R900 he is owed.The man says he does not have it, and Aden moves on.Around the first of the month, Aden's customers would come to the Mr Cheap spaza shop and settle the credit he had extended to them.Now no one comes to Mr Cheap, which was looted three weeks ago, so Aden walks the streets of Vukani township, in Grahamstown, knocking on the doors of customers. Many have known him for all of the 10 years he has been in the town."Come back my friend," says one woman over and over, before adding: "We are in a mess."But the Somalian trader does not know how he will come back from the devastation that has befallen his shop.He needs to fix the hole in the roof, get new shelving, refrigerators and an electricity box. That alone will cost R40000. Restocking the shop will cost another R40000. Migrants rely on cold, hard cash. There are no insurance payouts, and the cash needed to rebuild is difficult, if not impossible, to raise .He is not alone. Ten kilometres out of Grahamstown nearly 300 foreigners remain holed up in the Stone Crescent Hotel - a sort of modern-day Hotel Rwanda.The foreigners - Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Somalis and Ethiopians - are refugees from xenophobic attacks that destroyed 350 shops around Grahamstown. Some still wear the clothes they escaped in when the mobs came on October 21.Each nationality lives separately. In the kitchens, they try to transform donated food into something that tastes of home.The Pakistanis take flour to make rotis, the Bangladeshis are heavy on the chillies, and the Somalis favour rice.Aden has a room to himself, his wife and two young children, but their kitchen is set up in the toilet.Others make do with dormitory rooms.During the day some of the traders make forays into the townships beyond Grahamstown to see what can be done about reopening their shops. They dare not stay after dark."Eighty percent of the community wants us back, but it is the 20% we are worried about," says Aden.The government and community members are trying to pave the way for the foreigners' return. Each day that passes Grahamstown's economy hurts more because the foreign traders filled a niche in the township market.The traders, unlike the supermarkets in town, are willing to sell in very small amounts - from R2 airtime to a teaspoon of sugar - so aiding poor customers who often survive off a grandparent's pension.With the foreign traders gone, residents have to pay R16 taxi fare to go to town to buy their groceries.The majority of foreign traders are the breadwinners for extended families back home. Bangladeshi Jewel Mohammed is putting his brother and sister through university .In Vukani township Aden tries one last time to collect on his debts. This time he is lucky. He is handed R180."If everyone in the community gave me R20, I would be able to rebuild my shop," he says in the presence of some residents standing along the road. They laugh...