I Had a Pet Monkey When I Was 9
Recently, at work, my coworkers and I were all made to participate in an ice breaker activity. It was simple: Everyone had to write an unexpected and preferably hard to guess fact about themselves down on a sticky note. These would be gathered and read out to the group, who then had to work together and guess who’d written it.
As my boss explained the rules to us, I panicked. I’d unknowingly given up all my best go-tos in the month we’d all been working there. We were a big group, too, so I didn’t want to go too generic and kill the fun of the game. I’m sure many of my coworkers felt the same way. Ultimately, though, I thought way too hard about it and chose to write down the following:
“I studied in Ontario’s French First Language system from K-12. University is my first time being taught in English.”
I won’t pretend that’s a boring answer, but I totally regretted it when, sometime after my turn had passed, the following sticky note was read out:
“I used to have a pet flying squirrel.”
I sat all the way up. That’s a way cooler answer, are you kidding me? This person was playing the game right. Everybody had questions. How old were you? How long did you have it for? What did you name it? It was riveting, and I’m sure it reminded us all what the point of an ice breaker game is: to get niggas talking!
The game continued like normal after that, but something had shifted, and by something I mean me. After everybody went, in the brief silence that follows growing to understand each other a little bit more, I blurted:
“Lowkey, can I edit my answer?”
I tried to put myself in their shoes. If my coworker tried to keep us all here longer, I’d want to hear something super cool, so I couldn’t go with “At some point in my life, I could listen to the Shrek score and tell you exactly what was happening in the movie.” Instead, I went with:
“I used to have a pet monkey when I was 9.”
Cue the Oos and Ahhs (ooh-oohs and aah-aahs?…sorry). The typical round of questions: How’d you get a monkey? I gave them a shorter version of the story I’m about to tell you. What’d you name it? I named him after a cartoon character, of course. Do you have a picture? Actually, I have two, but you only get one for now:
After the ice breaker ended, some of my coworkers approached me for the evidence and were elated to find out he was real, lol.
Garu often comes up during ice breaker activities. The last time I brought him up was during a campaign for an on-campus extracurricular. After I posted a “Get to Know Me” main grid post, a friend reached out to express that he never knew this about me. It’s not uncommon for me to discover I forgot to give someone my monkey lore, so I thought I’d write about it today.
LMAO, girl, how’d you get a monkey?!
Back in 2013, my family and I went on a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (who is killing it in the World Cup right now, and I don’t even watch soccer fr!). We were only there for the month of August, and while it remains the only time I’ve flown on a plane (or, I guess the only four times, considering how many you have to fucking take to get there and back), it was very identity-shaping. For example, before flying back home, I’d never owned a pet. Then, during my trip one August day, my dad’s colleague came into work.
He was a very funny, gap-toothed man. I was 9 and my siblings were also somewhere around there, so he and my father’s other colleagues took turns entertaining us kids for a few minutes while my dad managed his construction site. He had things to do, too, however, so we skipped the small talk.
“Tu sais, ici au Congo, les gens gardent les singes comme animal de compagnie?” You know people have pet monkeys here in Congo?
I thought he was full of shit. “Ha! Ouai, ouai.”
“Sérieux! T’en veux?” Seriously! Do you want one?
In Congo, my siblings and I were Les Canadiennes, The Canadians. This was no misnomer. When we first got to Congo, I was shocked my mom was able to make us spaghetti. I told her as much, too.
“Les pâtes ils existent en Afrique?!” Pasta exists in Africa?!
My mom was baffled by the question, to say the least, but I bring it up to exemplify exactly what my relatives were working with. Despite all being bilingual, something about the way we spoke French made it obvious we were Anglophone, too. We expressed shock that Congo had really good burgers and way better Fanta than Canada does around too many of our Ton Tons (colloquial French for “uncles”). They spent the trip poking lighthearted fun at us. Because of this, I refused to believe my dad’s colleague. C’mon, monkeys and Africa is such an easy trap. I opted to trap him instead and replied that yes, I did want a pet monkey.
“OK. Je reviens demain.” Okay, I’ll be back tomorrow.
I’m pretty sure I laughed in his face. He’d successfully broken the ice.
“Promet?”
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“Promet.”
And it was sealed.
Yo, he wasn’t lying.
The next morning, my sister woke me up holding a stuffed monkey.
I was pissed. The mosquitos are no joke in Congo, so I had to be shaken awake through the mosquito net canopy surrounding the queen my still-tiny siblings and I were sharing that month. Through the net and blurry eyes, I could see one of my big sisters holding some…thing.
Bro, I went back to bed.
“Kelly!!”
Ugh. I decided to humour them. I’d already decided the monkey was inanimate, so when my eyes focused to see it bring its hand up from its crotch to lick at its fingers — real licking sounds and all — I shot right up.
My shocked eyes met my sister’s ecstatic ones. Based on her grip on him, I knew it’d be the family computer all over again: I was never getting a turn.
“Yo, he wasn’t lying!” She shouted.
Girl, yeah, no kidding.
How Garu got his name :’)
Being 90s and 2000s kids, my siblings and I watched a wide variety of cartoons growing up. One of these was Pucca (2006), which I’d re-become obsessed with the summer of our trip. As soon as the day’s activities were done, I’d run off to my laptop to watch more episodes on a very legal website.
When the excitement abated and it came time to name the monkey, the cards fell into place perfectly. Though I can’t remember why, none of my siblings had any strong opinions on what to name him. I, however, did and shouted:
“Can we name him Garu?!”
A series of shrugs. “Yeah, sure,” one of them said.
And so, Garu was named :D !
This is what it’s like to have a monkey
I was right about hardly getting a turn holding him, but that was mainly because my big sister was a lot less scared to do it than I was. I dunno, he just felt so alive. The few times I did hold him, though, it was hard to ignore how tiny his hands and feet were (see pictures! how cute!!) and how warm he felt. He was like a baby. He definitely enjoyed being held, which is obviously super adorable.
Most properties in Congo are gated, and Garu spent his days sitting on ours (adorably) watching the people go by. If he got bored of that, he watched my dad and his team work away. He slept on his left side every night without fail. I never woke up early enough to catch his morning routine, though I did try.
He was very curious (ba dum tss!). One time he found a giant cockroach carcass and ripped it apart (sorry, gross). At first, when he drank his own piss (also gross), I thought maybe it was it the infancy of it all, but over time it became clear that that it was just a thing he did we had to be okay with. Thankfully, he had no issues being offered warm milk, too. He was a pickier eater than I would’ve guessed, though. (we tried to feed him the cockroach…apparently he’s above that). My siblings and I never had to take care of him, because everyone always made sure he was fed, so unfortch I wouldn’t be able to tell you much more about that.
What happened to Garu?
Like many childhood pets, that’s the big question, isn’t it? I’ll give you the story my mother gave us:
A year later, my mom returned to DR Congo to visit my dad alone. She was gone for about a month. When she came back, after we’d reunited and hugged and caught up, my mom softened. Apparently, Garu had passed away some time after we left Africa the summer before. Congo is located in Central Africa and has a tropical climate. During the wet season, Garu slipped and fell and didn’t make it. Usually bad things just happened and we knew ’cause we were there, so it was weird having to be sat down about it.
I didn’t cry, though I remember wishing I could. I didn’t stay sad for long, either, but mainly because the fond memories trumped any upset. I haven’t had a pet since Garu, but I’m thankful to my parents for the experience — it’s a super funny story and he was the silliest of little guys.
Thank you for reading and see you next month!
— Muanza
