This twelve-year-old girl, May New Zin Aung is Burmese, who I met at the Yangon Zoo. May sells bananas everyday with her younger brother. She is one of the sellers permitted to sell animal food inside the zoo park since no outside food is allowed to bring in.

Like most Burmese girls, May is brown-skinned and black-haired. Her features are neither too sharp nor flat. She has a broad forehead and her physique is small for her age. Rather on the skinny side, May is short as well. She seems honest and genuine and doesn’t seem moody or bitter. May is rather proud of her job and polite to people who come and buy her bananas. She loves her job because it gives her joy, as she loves animals.

May starts her day with the scent of fresh and ripe bananas. She carries bananas to the zoo from the market and sets up the cart and arranges the bananas- the yellow kind and the green kind, making them pleasing in the eye of the customers. May likes to eat bananas but whenever she sees starving animals around her, she decides to give bananas to these animals even though those were for sale and that makes her happy. So, she cannot earn much money because of her kindness.

I appreciate this girl because she is not like her age twelve, but she is responsible and loves the nature, especially knowing how to care for the animals around her and value them as her family.