By : Nur Firdaus Abdul Rahim
KUALA NERUS: Like any other animal lover, 17-year-old Nadia Khairun Nisa Yusof loves her pet, ‘Awang’ so dearly.
In fact, she could not live a day without spending her time playing with him.
The thing is, Awang is not a cat, a bird, a dog or any typical domestic animal people kept for companionship or pleasure. Awang is a six-year-old albino buffalo and is pink in colour!
Nadia has been playing with Awang since the day her father, Yusof Mohammad, 47, bought the male buffalo when it was still a one-year-old calf from a farmer in Kuala Berang, and today, the mammal could even understand every gesture and signal given by the fifth-former of SMK Sungai Tong.
The amount of time they spent together has even resulted in the girl being nicknamed the ‘Pink Buffalo Girl’.
“Awang is very close to me…it has been my playmate over the past six years. My daily routine after I finish school at 3 pm would be playing with Awang.
“Every day, I’ll feed him, bath him and walk him to the grass field and to the mud to wallow before we return home before sunset. A day without Awang would make me feel incomplete like something is missing.
“I could not imagine how my life would be being away from him someday,” said the second of four siblings when met by Bernama at her father’s buffalo shed in Kampung Gemuruh, here.
Photographs of Nadia and Awang had attracted the attention of the netizens not long after the photographs of another teen, Syukor Khamis, with a herd of his father’s buffaloes went viral recently.
The photographs of her on the Facebook account of Amazing Terengganu gained a lot of attention as Awang, weighing 760kg, was not only muscular but also pink in contrast to the normal dark grey or black buffalo.
Making her more special, Nadia is the fifth generation of buffalo breeders in the village and also possesses meat cutting skills which she learned from her father.
Nadia, who aspires to become a veterinarian, said it was more fun and joyful for her to spend time with her buffalo compared to the usual activities of girls of her age as they were mostly into beauty care and social media.
“I don’t really like playing with the handphone…I only use it if necessary…because I rather spend my time with Awang and his calf Putih.
“My parents would be happier to see me spending time in the shed rather than doing less useful things,” said the girl who is also an active school netballer.
Meanwhile, her father Yusof said that among all his children, only Nadia had shown interest in livestock breeding and had somewhat possessed the animal-taming skill.
“She tamed Awang without me teaching her any secret or tips, from what I saw, Nadia has loved the pink buffalo since the first day I brought him home.
“Awang knows her well too. He will even let her sit on his back,” he added. – Bernama
