Mecca

Being a Muslim country, a large portion of the male population in Egypt is named after the prophet Mohamed. To ensure that its working population stays within its own country, the government is extremely restrictive to whom it will grant foreign travel visas to; this inevitably hangs on status allowing only the people with good jobs and the rich to leave as it can be almost certain that they will return. Egypt is still classed as a third-world country as much of its rural communities still live in extreme poverty. The few who are lucky work at resorts on the Red-Sea, where a semi-decent living can be gleaned from looking after Western tourists that flock to the diving Mecca of the world. This however adds to the frustration of some of the people that I talked to, as they view Europe also as its own sort of Mecca, a Mecca where opportunity and riches await.