A Brit Living in a ‘House of Neighbours’ in Andalusia

What I discovered about living in a close-knit community of neighbours in Jerez de la Frontera, a small city in Andalusia that I moved to from London two years ago.

It is October 2020 and I have just moved out of the ‘Casa de Vecinos’ where I lived for a year and eight months. This literally translates to, ‘A House of Neighbours’. It is an old style of housing that consists of apartments in small communitary blocks, built one-on-top-of-the-other. These houses have many outside spaces — patios and roof terraces where neighbours can socialise and hang out their washing. When I went for an interview at my last job, I told my British boss where I lived in Jerez. She asked me, ‘Do you live in a casa de vecinos?’ I replied that I did and she stared back at me disbelievingly before asking, ‘Oh God — how do you manage?’ At this point we had managed fine, with a few difficulties, but I had been living there for six months and it was still so pleased that I had my own patio and thrilled by the idea of having an ‘authentic’ Jerez experience. Yet having only ever lived in London and Glasgow, two large British cities, where the ideal objective in building housing is ‘privacy’, it turned out to be a bit of a culture shock. As they say, be careful what you wish for.