The real Cape Towna night at RANDS

The main thing first: you absolutely must not go there on your own. Only if you have a reliable friend who won’t leave you or abandon you there. We had such a person, and it was one of the most unusual evenings of the whole trip.

In short

How we got there

On holiday we’d been to the township of Langa with Namhla: here’s how it went. Then we exchanged contacts and kept in touch, and she offered to show us the “real Cape Town”. We really wanted that.

So she invited us to RANDS. Incidentally, the driver who took us on the tour of Langa also named RANDS when asked about his favourite place.

RANDS is a club, restaurant and concert venue in the township of Khayelitsha. It was opened in 2015 by the brothers Mfundo and Mshayi Mbeki, and it holds up to 1,500 people.

The ride

Nobody wanted to take us there. We ordered a taxi with two stops: first Langa, then Khayelitsha, and all the drivers refused. Only one agreed, and only because he hadn’t noticed the intermediate stop. When the app showed where we were going, he asked several times: “Are you sure you want to go here?” We said yes.

While we waited for Namhla and her friend, he said he wouldn’t wait long: if they didn’t show up in a few minutes, he’d leave.

Inside

Locals come here, and tourists almost never do. Besides us, there was, it seems, just one other white person. At the entrance everyone is photographed, and afterwards we were posted on the club’s Instagram.

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A photo from the entrance at RANDS

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Everything inside is arranged differently. It’s not that tables are in one place and the dance floor in another, or that there’s one big dance floor like at a rave. Everywhere there are tall tables where it’s comfortable both to stand and to sit on high bar stools. You order food, eat and dance right at your own table.

The food is braai and local cuisine. They give you meat and you eat it with your hands. There will be no delicate avocado toast with poached eggs here. All I got was something from the sides. There’s plenty of alcohol: we had ciders.

At first it was calm, but more and more people kept arriving. We’d planned to leave quickly, but no such luck: we danced a lot.

They taught us to dance

The guys started teaching us their dances. Dance culture in Africa is special, and every country has its own. Once, a guy at a similar place explained to us how the dances of East, South and West Africa differ, but that’s just what he told us.

I tried to repeat them, but honestly nothing worked, and everyone giggled at me. From the outside the moves look simple, but in reality they’re completely different, unfamiliar to us.

The atmosphere was very warm and cheerful. We loved it.

Langa at night

When we left it was already too late, and ordering a taxi was impossible. Namhla’s friend came to pick us up. Her friend, by the way, was with us the whole evening.

On the way Namhla suggested driving past Langa at night. It was both fun and nerve-racking, but we went. And it turned out that at night life is in full swing there. I saw one place and asked, “Is that a club?” “Yes, do you want to go in?” “Yes, why not.” It was nerve-racking, but Namhla repeated more than once that as long as we were with her, nobody would touch us and we could trust her. We’d trusted her right from the start.

I think people there were very surprised to see two lost white girls in the middle of a township. We stayed close to Namhla, but many people came up to us, and we hugged everyone.

How it’s different

It seemed to me that in Cape Town places really are divided: there are places where mostly Black people go, places where mostly white people go, and shared ones. And they differ. Where mostly white people go, pop Western music usually plays and it’s not as fun. And where we were that night it’s all about community: you can feel everyone talking and having fun together, not each on their own. That’s my impression.

Then we were driven home safely and said goodbye. It was an incredibly cool experience. I didn’t even think we could feel something like that.

On the one hand, I’d like there to be more such places, and more open ones, so that people like me could go there without worrying. On the other hand, maybe then they would no longer be the way they are.