Observatory by: Anita

The neighborhood that our BEAUTIFUL seventeen bedroom house is located in is called Observatory—called “Obs” by some of the locals for short. The house appears to be very small from the street; the pictures do it no justice! The house is actually three floors with a large living room, dining room, and kitchen. The living and dining room are ideal for group discussions and for dinner together, everyone always has a place to sit.

Our house is just a couple blocks aware from the main street in observatory where many restaurants and shops are. We’re lucky to be very close to the Kwik Spar as well, which is the local grocery store. This comes in handy a lot when we need to pick up bottles of water, snacks, or go to the ATM before we leave for our day. We have a lot of restaurants by us with varying cuisines. We’ve managed to make it to a lot of the restaurants close by because of the excellent food and the convenience!

From the moment we all took our brief walking tour around Observatory, we all got a very good vibe. Observatory is a very diverse neighborhood, complete with students from abroad, people from other parts of Cape Town, and people who were born in South Africa but moved around. Historically, Observatory was one of the few “grey areas” in South Africa. This meant that during apartheid, people of all races and ethnicities were allowed to live together in Observatory. This accepting history seems to be the reason why Observatory is still so diverse today.

The houses around ours are all brightly colored and seem very cheery and welcoming, different from the neutral colors that most houses are in the states. We’re down the road from some homes that other interns can stay at when they come to visit South Africa and have gotten a chance to see a couple of those during our stay here. All in all, our neighborhood has been very inviting and we all feel very safe and have enjoyed our stay in this neighborhood thus far!