NEW FRIENDS

Oot, Eat, and Tui are some of my new friends, they live on my block. Oot runs a little laundry shop a few doors down from me, I met him when I first moved into the neighborhood. He lives in the shop with his little three year old daughter. I'm not sure where her mother is, and I don't know the whole story, but Oot said once that she was sick, so I guess he's kind of a single parent. A couple doors down from Oot is a little TV repair shop, this is where Eat lives and works. And Tui lives in an apartment upstairs from Oot and Eat. I think Tui works in insurance or something. These three guys hang out together all the time, almost every night you can find them sitting out in front of Oot's shop, eating dinner and sharing drinks. And every time I walk by they wave me over to join in, I've spent a lot of evenings with them. Tui speaks English pretty well, and Oot really wants to learn. Eat is rather quiet and just sits there and smiles a lot. Tui usually acts as the translator, and Oot's eagerness to speak English increases with the number of drinks he's had. Sometimes Oot and Eat will get out guitars and they will sing together. Oot's daughter stays inside and watches cartoons. Sometimes she'll come to the door and share a drawing with us or something. She's really shy, but is starting to warm up to me, she waves at me now when I walk by. Dana took these pictures when she was here the other weekend, Oot is the one in the yellow shirt and that's Tui in the middle. In the top picture I think I was complimenting Oot on the mustache that it appeared he was attempting to grow. Oot is all smiles.