Jiji – the heaven on earth

There are not so many places in the world where I love to come back as much as to JIJI.

Jiji it is a small bar, but without alcohol next to Bibliotheca Alexandria, in Alexandria in Egypt. It is a place where I spent most of my time during my first stay in Egypt. It was in October 2006 during Ramadan. I remember going to Jiji just after Iftar and leaving just after the sunrise. And when I came back to Alex in July 2008, it was one of the first places I went. This place changed a lot during this time, but I love it still.

Old Jiji - view from the sea side


Old Jiji - view from outside


Old Jiji - inside

Why it is so special? I have no idea. I liked this place more before it was renovated. The old chairs, tables, and the roof out of straw umbrellas. There was no windows, just the smell of water. And the best was that you could go down to the water, it was dirty but lovely especially during sunrises.

Last year when I was there, everything was already new, at first I was very disappointed and finally I was avoiding the new part “building with windows”, but there was still the outside part, still lovely, still with amazing views and the smell of water.

New jiji

Because I could sit there for a very long time, and even make same friends in this place :) with my friend we decided to work in this place. Why not? Isn’t it an amazing idea? Because I am so fluent in Arabic – I can order shisha, mango juice, banana juice and of course coffee without sugar, with small help of my friend I convinced the waiter that I do speak Arabic. And it was going quite well (applying for a job) until the guy realized that we are very serious. He was quite confused when we wanted to talk with manager. And here the problems started. We were offering our help, flexible hours (we were flexible), with experience (having own shishas at home and preparing it for all our friends), and even we didn’t expect the salary, we said that tips and t-shirt would be enough, but what we got to know from manager was that they don’t hire woman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was very sad about this. Lovely place but with weird policy.