The Monkey's Wedding

I was born in South Africa, in a little surfing town on the east coast called Durban (I've always been east coast ;). When I was nearly nine, my parents decided to move our little family across the world to Toronto. I've spent most of my life in Canada, but a lot of the folklore, sayings, and sweet stories from the different inhabitants from this lush land have stayed with me. Of all of these, the one that pops up all the time is about the monkey's wedding.

The story goes: it is a rare day when the sun shines and rain suddenly spatters down through the sunbeams--but when it does, we call it a monkey's wedding. It comes from the Zulu "umshado wezinkawu", a wedding for monkeys.

A monkey's wedding in Moore Park, shot from outside my house.

I'm sure this strange moniker has something to do with the combination of opposing elements, something we North Americans more literally call a 'sunshower'. I suppose it's the meteorological equivalent of the absurd personification that includes a monkey acting in a distinctly human ceremony, but no one really knows. It's a sweet string of words, regardless; the imagery is vivid in my mind and every sunshower sees me smiling, lost in the happy nostalgia of my childhood.


Riding in a cab to an interview last week, the rain splattered windows glinted in the sunshine and I mused aloud that it was a monkey's wedding. The driver (of Middle Eastern descent) laughed, saying that in his homeland they called it a wedding for rats. 

I don't know that this variation would have left quite the same impression...