Get
To Know
The White-Throated Guenon, also known as the red-bellied monkey
and the red-bellied guenon, is a diurnal primate that lives on trees
of rainforests or tropical areas of Nigeria and Benin. They are
usually frugivores but insects, leaves, and crops are also in their
diet. They usually live in small groups of four to five individual
monkeys however, there have been groups of 30 discovered, and in
cases, some males wander alone. They are arboreal, living in moist
tropical forest and the wettest parts of dry tropical forest, however
they can also be found in secondary bush and old farmland. Males
weigh from 3.5-4.5 kg and females weigh 2-4 kg. Females give birth
to one offspring, which is a factor of decreasing population. They
were once considered extinct due to constant hunting for the fur
of their unique red belly and white front legs, but a small group
was subsequently found near the Niger River in 1988. They are still
considered an endangered species due to their decreasing population.
They are present within Nigerian forest reserves and sacred groves
in Benin, but hunting and logging restrictions are difficult to
enforce or nonexistent. They are one of the species that live in
the Guinean Forests of the West Africa Biodiversity Hotspot.
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A Made Boy
by
Jeffrey Zable
Being conferred as a Made Boy was the highlight of my life.
I walked among my classmates like royalty--the girls especially
treating me like a king, offering me the best part of their
lunches.
If we were playing basketball on the schoolyard, the other
team
members never put their hands up when I was taking a shot.
And
when lining up to return to the classroom if I wasn't initially
in front
they would know to move behind me.
Even the teachers treated me special when they learned
that I had
made the grade. Not once did I get less than an A on my
report card
except for that one time I almost burned down the classroom
during
a science experiment, provoking the teacher to give me an
A-, which
led to their not only being fired, but never seen again
. . .
Jeffrey Zable is a teacher and conga drummer who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric
music for dance classes and Rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area.
His poetry, short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in hundreds of
literary magazines and anthologies. Recent writing in Former People,
Ariel Chart, Kitchen Sink, Third Wednesday, Untitled Writing, Beatnik
Cowboy, Tigershark, The Nonconformist, Misery Tourism, Uppagus and
many others.
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