An American’s Experience with Goats in Kenya

Episode 152
For the Love of Goats

In this fascinating episode, Deborah Niemann sits down with Mark Hicks, an author and adventurer, to discuss his unforgettable experience with goats during a trip to Kenya. Mark’s journey was part of his seminary doctorate program, where he stayed with a pastor who also happened to be a goat farmer. What he encountered there was a completely different approach to goat farming—one that challenged his understanding of how these animals are raised and utilized in different cultures.

During his stay, Mark observed that goats were a primary source of nutrition for the local community. He and his group had the rare opportunity to witness a goat being butchered, an experience that provided valuable insight into how food is prepared and consumed in different parts of the world.

One of the most surprising moments of Mark’s journey came when he learned about the local tradition of eating raw goat kidney. In this region, the kidney is considered a delicacy, often given as a treat to children. Curious about the experience, Mark and one of his fellow travelers decided to give it a try. Beyond the kidney, he was struck by how every part of the goat was utilized, including the blood, which was given to the farm’s dogs as a food source.

Reflecting on this experience, Mark gained a deeper appreciation for the cultural differences in food practices. What might seem unusual or even unappetizing to one person can be a cherished tradition in another part of the world. His time in Kenya also reinforced the importance of sustainability, as the local farmers ensured that no part of the animal went to waste.

Through this conversation, Mark shares not only his incredible journey but also the broader lessons that travel can teach us about food, culture, and the different ways people sustain themselves around the world. Tune in to hear his full story and gain a new perspective on the role of goats in global communities!

Connect with Mark Hicks

• Website: MarkAHicks.com

Transcript

Introduction 0:02
For the love of goats. We are talking about everything goat. Whether you’re a goat owner, a breeder, or just a fan of these wonderful creatures, we’ve got you covered. And now, here’s Deborah Niemann.

Deborah 00:17
Hello everyone, and welcome to today’s show. This is gonna be like nothing you have ever heard on the show before. Last month, I was at Podfest in Orlando, and it’s pretty funny when people find out your podcast is about goats. It is amazing how many people have a goat story, and today’s guest is one of those people. As soon as I met him, and he found out that my podcast is goats, he started to tell me his goat story. 

And I gotta say, I have heard a lot of goat stories in the last 23 years, and this one is so unique. So that’s all I’m going to say. And then we’re going to let Mark tell his own story. So today’s guest is Mark Hicks. He happens to be the author of a book called Learning Love: Building a Life That Matters and Healthy Relationships That Last. Welcome to the show today, Mark. 

Mark 01:11
Thank you. So glad to be here. 

Deborah 01:12
Yeah. So obviously your book has nothing to do with goats, but when you told me your goat story, I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to have you on the show, because this is a really interesting story. So you went to Africa with a group of people, and you met some goats while you were there, and got to meet the locals, and you learned quite a bit about goats that I’ve never heard before. So go ahead and just get started. Like, why did you go to Africa to start with? 

Mark 01:41
Well, I was working on a doctorate at the time. I was in seminary; I was working on a doctorate in ministry, and as I finished that, after graduation, we got to do what was called a capstone project, which meant a group of us got to go to Kenya and meet some of the local pastors there, tour some of the local churches, and meet some of the nonprofits and charity organizations, and maybe see how we could help in our churches back in the United States. And so it was a great opportunity to meet some folks there and learn a lot about the culture in the area. 

But we stayed for a couple of days in Nairobi, and then we drove a few hours up into the mountains to stay with a pastor who was also a farmer, and he had lots and lots of goats. That was their primary source of nutrition was their goats. And so that was my first interaction with goats in Africa. 

Deborah 02:37
Okay. And then they invited you for dinner? 

Mark 02:41
They did. We were sitting around the campfire early in the morning, and someone was dragging one of the goats away from the rest of them out into an open field, and one of the people said, “I wonder if that’s our dinner?” So we all get up and go after him, because we wanted to see this. And the guy looked at us like we were insane, because he’s like, “Why do you want to be here?” So someone in our group explained that we haven’t seen this. We wanted to watch this because it’s unique to us. 

And he said, “Then how do you get meat?” And she said, “Well, it comes to the store, to the grocery store, to the market, and we buy it there.” He said, “Yes, the marketplace.” Well, in that area–the marketplace–they would just take the goat and lay it on the table and butcher it there in the marketplace and give people what portion they wanted. She said, “No. Meat in the United States is processed somewhere else. It’s wrapped in plastic.” Explained all of that. He had no frame of reference to what we were talking about. 

So that was a fun interaction where we got to see, for the first time, for all of us that were not raised on farms, we got to see an animal slaughtered and see the goat slaughtered. It was not something that we necessarily enjoyed, but it was a unique experience. And as the man, the farmer there, who is our host, his description to us was, “This is why God gave us goats to give us nourishment.” 

Deborah 04:12
Yes, okay, so then once he butchered the goat, what happened at that point then? 

Mark 04:19
Well, he explained to us, as he butchered the goat, he explained that if children are around, they will come running, because they all want to beg for the raw goat kidney. It is a treat that they give out to children. 

Deborah 04:32
Just in case somebody’s driving and they’re like, What did he just say children want? What? 

Mark 04:37
They want the raw goat kidney. It is a treat there. And so he offered it to us. He took it, took the kidney out of the goat, and it’s about the size of a golf ball, as I recall, maybe a little larger, and he cut it into pieces about the size of a Jolly Rancher and offered it to us. 

And of course, we were kind of hesitant. But we had one guy in our group that was kind of adventurous, more than the rest of us, and he decided he would try it. And I’m kind of an adventurer myself, so I thought, If he eats this and he doesn’t pass out or throw up, I’m going to do it. So he ate it, and he was okay. And so I was the second one to try it, and it wasn’t terrible. It was kind of sweet in a way. It was very salty, which you might imagine, and so–

Deborah 05:28
It wasn’t rinsed or anything before he handed it to you? 

Mark 05:31
No, no. He kind of wiped it off with his hand, cut it and wiped the blood off. I got an interior portion, so I didn’t have blood on mine. I got one of the interior cuts of the kidney. So, yeah, it was a little bit sweet, very, very salty. It was soft to chew, but you did have to chew it. It wasn’t overly soft. It was more firm than I actually thought it would be. I thought it would be kind of squishy, but it was, it was actually kind of firm. And you had to chew it a little bit. 

And I mean, it wasn’t for me, but I could see in that part of the world why that might be a delicacy or a treat for the kids. 

Deborah 06:05
Yeah, because it’s very small, and so there’s not, like, everybody isn’t going to get a big portion if it’s very small, so.

Mark 06:13
No, it’s about the size of a golf ball or so, maybe a little larger than that. So, yeah, well, they cut it up. In fact, one of the guys, he gave us one of the kidneys. He kept the other for himself. He ate the whole thing in one bite–the guy that was slaughtering the goats. 

Deborah 06:28
Yeah, I have some old cookbooks. I collect old cookbooks when I see them at garage sales or something, and I know there’s a lot of recipes in there for kidney, but they’re all cooked. They’re prepared in some way. They’re not fresh from the animal.

Mark 06:43
This was fresh right out of the goat.

Deborah 06:46
So what did they do with the rest of the goat then? What was the rest of your dinner like? 

Mark 06:50
Oh, we had goat stew for dinner that night. We had goat ribs, actually, for dessert. They smoked the ribs all day and put some sugar on them, and it was beautiful. It was absolutely wonderful. It was great food. I mean, it was very tasty and very nutritious. And, yeah, it was actually a really good dinner. 

Deborah 07:11
Yeah, that is so interesting. So tell us a little bit more about the goats, like the goats that they had there on the farm. Like, how big were they, and what did they have for housing or fencing and all that kind of stuff? 

Mark 07:23
They did have fencing. And to me, I know nothing about goats farming or anything like that, they seemed overcrowded. They were really packed in there. There were a lot. There were lots and lots of goats, and they had two or three pens all fenced in. And they were, they were tight. There were a couple of hundred goats, probably, on this farm, and they were packed in there pretty tight. They seemed happy enough. They would all interact and, you know, play and all this kind of thing. But there was not a lot of space for them to run around in their pen. They kept them pretty tight. 

Deborah 07:53
And did they have any kind of shelter? I mean, I know this is Africa. It’s very warm there year round, but did they have any kind of shelter or anything like that? 

Mark 08:03
Yeah, there was a shed type of thing, kind of three walls and a roof that they could sort of escape from the sun and get in there. It wasn’t enough to hold all of them, but it was a large area, so a number of them could kind of get into the shade. And they had some tarps that they could put over as well to tie off and provide some more shade when needed. 

Deborah 08:26
Okay, so do you know, did they milk the goats or anything? Or did they just use them for meat? 

Mark 08:30
I don’t know that. They didn’t offer us any goat milk. It was just for the meat, and so I don’t know if they milked them or not. 

Deborah 08:38
Yeah, it’s interesting that people in some countries don’t want to use the milk for some reason. We’ve had a guest on before, Dan Laney, who works with people who raise goats in Nepal, and when he first went there, nobody wanted to have anything to do with the milk. And so gradually through the years, he’s gotten them to start using the milk and making cheese and stuff. 

So it’s always interesting, because you just kind of assume that if the people in other countries would be using the milk, at least I did. I want to use everything, you know, like, let’s use the milk, the meat, the hides, the horns, like, you know, anything that could be used for anything. 

Mark 09:14
Yeah, and they did that. I don’t know about the milk specifically, they may have used the milk, but when they slaughtered the goat, they drained the blood into a pan, and they used that to feed the dogs that they had on the property. They had a number of–probably eight or 10–dogs that they kept on the property to basically protect the property from wild animals that may come around. And so they use the blood of the goat to feed the dogs, which they were very happy to get. And they slaughtered it so that we used the meat for the stew, the ribs they used, and I think they even used to hide to make blankets and things of that nature, I believe.

Deborah 09:49
That’s so interesting. So your goat story didn’t actually end in Africa.

Mark 09:55
[laughter] That’s right.

Deborah 09:56
It was the gift that kept giving. So you went back home, and a few months later you went to the doctor. Can you tell everybody? 

Mark 10:05
Yeah. It was just my regular doctor appointment for my physical. And the doctor said, “We have this new test”–because I have high blood pressure–and he said, “I would like you to go through this test that measures any blockage in the arteries or veins around your heart. If there’s the slightest bit of blockage, it’ll pick it up.” And he said, “The insurance won’t cover it, but it’s $100. I think you should do it.” And I had $100, so I decided that’d be a good idea to make sure there wasn’t any blockage. 

And so he called me, and he said “There was zero blockage. That was the good news. No problem at all,” he said, “but we did see something that I think is a benign cyst on your gallbladder,” I think he said, as I recall, and he said, “I don’t think it’s any problem, but we want to do a scan specifically on that to make sure that it’s okay, but I believe it’s a benign cyst.” 

So I go home, I tell my wife that the doctor thinks he saw a benign cyst. I go through a scan just to make sure. Now, my wife has a bachelor’s degree in molecular and microbiology and a master’s in public health, and she immediately says, “You have to call the doctor’s office and tell them you ate raw goat kidney in Africa.” I’m like, “Why?” She said, “Because you could have a parasite.” And I said, “Well, if I do, they’ll see that.” 

She said, “No, they need to be looking specifically for it in order to see it, to make sure they see it.” So I called the doctor’s office, talked to the nurse, and I said, “I just need to let you know that the doctor said that he needs to do a scan to check for what he believes is a benign cyst on my gallbladder, but he needs to be looking for parasites, because I was in Africa a few months ago, and I ate a few things like raw goat kidney.” And the line just went silent. And then a few seconds later, she says, “Oh, my.” [laughter] She said, “Okay, I will, I’ll tell the doctor.”

So it was a benign cyst on my gallbladder. No big deal, but yeah, I was probably the talk of the doctor’s office for a while.

Deborah 12:04
Yeah, no doubt. I’m sure they have never heard that one before. 

Mark 12:08
I think that was new, yes. I live in Knoxville, Tennessee. I don’t know that too many people in my area have eaten raw goat kidney. So yeah, that was probably the first for them. 

Deborah 12:20
Yeah, exactly. And it’s kind of interesting, because you don’t realize, with all of our food safety rules and stuff in this country, you don’t realize that things like that can actually happen. I know somebody who went to Ecuador and wound up with worms, which probably came from eating a salad or some kind of raw vegetables that hadn’t been properly washed. 

Mark 12:45
Yeah, the vegetables–I’ve known several people in my travels to get sick from eating vegetables or drinking the water and things of that nature or eating things that have been washed in the water. So yeah, it can be, it can be quite difficult on those international trips, especially with vegetables. So I was cautious with that, but the raw goat kidney, I was fine with. 

Deborah 13:08
Yeah. Dan Laney, again, the man who goes to Nepal on a regular basis to help the people there with their goats, they have some parasites there in the water that cause the children’s teeth to start to fall out at a young age–like, as teenagers, they’re starting to lose their teeth because of the parasites there in their water. So he’ll be on the show again pretty soon, and we’re going to talk about that–some of his work there with that. But there’s just so many things we take for granted here that we have not had to deal with in many, many decades. 

Mark 13:37
Right. Yeah, when you travel internationally, it’s a whole different set of rules. 

Deborah 13:42
Yeah, exactly. Is there anything else about the goat farm that you remember that you’d like to share? 

Mark 13:49
Oh, well, I don’t know that this means anything, but I just found it interesting that in the United States, when I see goats, they are many different colors, but every single goat there was pure white. There were no other colors, all white goats. 

Deborah 14:01
Yeah, that is interesting. And how big were they? 

Mark 14:05
I don’t know. I would say about mid-size from the ones I’ve seen in the United States. I’ve seen smaller and I’ve seen larger, so they were about mid-sized from what I’ve seen normally. 

Deborah 14:15
So, like, a little bit above your knee? 

Mark 14:18
Yeah, yeah, about right there, yeah. 

Deborah 14:20
Yeah, that’s interesting, because the only white goat I know of is the Saanen, and they have ears that stick straight up. Did their ears stick up or hang down? 

Mark 14:28
I believe they sticked up, yeah, as I recall. 

Deborah 14:31
So I wonder if they were Saanens, or maybe something related to that. I know there are so many different breeds of goats in the world, and in the United States, we’ve only got, you know, like the eight recognized dairy breeds and then a few meat breeds. So we really don’t have much compared to the rest of the world. So they may have something there that we don’t have here at all, because it sounds like they’re a little small to have been Saanens, but that is interesting. 

So before you go, can you tell us a little bit about your book? Because that’s why you were at Podfest. That was how I met you and everything. So tell everyone a little bit about your book, and then if they want to talk to you or learn more about it, where can they get information on that and where can they find you online? 

Mark 15:11
Yeah, as you mentioned, my book is Learning Love: Building a Life That Matters and Healthy Relationships That Last. In it, I teach the five components of love that anyone can learn and practice to build healthy relationships in every area of life. This is marriage, family, parenting, but also friendships, co-workers. Obviously, the relationship you would have with a co-worker is very different than a family member, but the same basic components of building those healthy relationships apply.

And so if you want to have healthy, happy, thriving relationships in every area of life, I hope you’ll take a look at my book. It works even if you come from a dysfunctional family or been through a divorce or been through relationship trauma, which a lot of people have in some measure or another. Learning these five components of love can help get you to a different place. So if you’re interested, you can go to my website. It’s MarkAHicks.com. Make sure to get my middle initial in there–MarkAHicks.com.

The book is available for pre-order. It comes out in June of ‘25 from Morgan James Publishing, but it’s available right now as we record this for pre-order. And there are easy links on my website to do that. And there’s a contact form there. I’m available for speaking engagements and workshops and coaching, or just for someone to say hi. Let me know that they saw me today on the show. 

Deborah 16:30
Have you started your podcast yet?

Mark 16:32
I have. It’s the Learning Love podcast. It’s fairly new, but I have launched that and it’s available on YouTube and Spotify Apple podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, the Learning Love podcast is available.

Deborah 16:45
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It was really fascinating to learn more about your experience in Africa when you got to meet the goats and try some local goat delicacies.

Mark 16:58
[laughter] Thank you so much. So glad to be with you today.

Deborah 17:24
And that’s it for today’s show. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to hit the “subscribe” button so that you don’t miss any episodes. To see show notes, you can always visit ForTheLoveOfGoats.com and you can follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/LoveGoatsPodcast. See you again next time. Bye for now!