 The
White-Handed Gibbon - Issue Seventeen |
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I started writing at the tender age of 22. Listening attentively to the word of God and reading the scriptures, formed an invaluable base for all my spiritual articles. I am 100% certain without a shred of a doubt that I can produce quality poetry, if not the best that this century will ever experience on a global scale. I hope that you will publish a few in your magazine etc. I am happy that you grant monetary incentive for each poem published. I appreciate every bit because I am unemployed due to the recent recession. Please think of me this Christmas when I and my three children will have little to eat. Hoping you would publish some. This will also serve as a reference to the bigger poetry publisher, so that they would not reject any future submissions. I have wrestled with our creator to show me what my gift was. I was driven by instinct for I had to find my place in this world. When I started off writing spiritual articles, poetry and lyric writing I got hooked. I knew that I would be totally dependent on my past experiences, which weren't entirely pleasant, to bring out the best in all my writings. I would turn to the main spring the Holy Spirit for the fine-tuning of all my works, which in turn catered for the Godly wisdom and the spiritual foresight. I do this so that when my intellectual properties are read, that they may spiritually 'light up' and burn the hearts of those that read them. Writing is my route out of poverty. If I have enriched one soul spiritually, then my life would never have been in vain. I endeavour to live with the Bible next to my bed. Through each of my writings God only compliments Himself. Salomon asked for wisdom. I asked for foresight so that wisdom will never elude me. My grave will one day be empty, it will only hold my bones, but you my dear reader will be the custodians of the precious gift that God has bestowed on me, coupled with an invaluable portion of the unextinguished light, which will always live within me. The Author cannot say good things about him, good things must come from others and the blessing must come from God. May my mother's credo; "The love you have for your own is natural, but the love you have for others comes from God", forever be cherished by the reader.
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The
White Handed Gibbon varies from black and dark-brown to light-brown,
sandy colours. Their hands and feet are white-coloured and a ring
of white hair surrounds the black face. They are true brachiators,
propelling themselves through the forest by swinging under the branches
using their extremely long arms and curved fingers on elongated
hands. They subsist principally upon fruit and leaves, with insects
and flowers forming the remainder of their diet in the dipterocarp
forest, including primary lowland and submontane rainforest, mixed
deciduous bamboo forest, and seasonal evergreen forest of Indonesia,
Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. Family groups inhabit a firm
territory, which they protect by warding off other gibbons with
their calls each morning. Each species has a typified call and each
breeding pair has unique variations on that theme. Mating occurs
in every month of the year, but most conceptions occur during the
dry season in March, with a peak in births during the late rainy
season, in October. On average, females reproduce for the first
time at about 11 years of age, gestation is six months long, and
pregnancies are usually of a single young. Young are nursed for
approximately two years, and full maturity comes at about eight
years. Their life expectancy is about 25 years. The white-handed
gibbon is threatened in various ways: they are sometimes hunted
for their meat, sometimes a parent is killed to capture young animals
for pets or to be imprisoned in zoos, but perhaps the most pervasive
is the loss of habitat through forest clearance for the construction
of roads, shifting agriculture, ecotourism, domesticated cattle
and elephants, forest fires, subsistence logging, illegal logging,
new village settlement, and palm oil plantations.