If a young man moves too near the family section and is unable to show he belongs there, police officers step in to shoo him away.
But for all that, the beach here, like most any other, is about boys and girls trying to be together. And the intrepid find ways.
With the air turning a foggy yellow color because of a nearby sandstorm, a lanky young man from the male section, wearing a blue tank top and black shorts, caught the eye of a young woman sitting in the family section.
Mr D.J. was spinning Al Agruba by the Iraqi singer Hussam al-Rasam:
Mother, a scorpion bit me
Oh Mother, if you’d only seen her
God created her to be gorgeous
A kiss from her
And everything would be perfect.
After half an hour of long-distance flirting, the young man, Laith Ali, came up with a plan.
He asked a man who was sitting in a truck for a scrap of paper and wrote something. He then walked slowly along the beach, seemingly unaware that he was headed toward the family section. Keeping his head lowered, he avoided the attention of a group of distracted policemen.
He moved toward the young woman, who was looking off in the other direction. And then, as if by accident, he dropped a piece of paper and walked away.
For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then the young woman stood up and walked a few yards toward the water. She stopped and picked up a piece of paper in the sand. She opened the note, read it and smiled. From a distance, the young man was watching.
“I told her she is beautiful,” Ali said softly. “And I gave her my phone number.”
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