By Ray Pollo, Senior Officer – Communications

On the hills of Kulele, there is a goat charmer! He is barely twelve, yet he tends twin kids like a pro. They love him. They like him.

If you want to be the goat, you have got to climb the mountain, the saying goes. Therefore, we climbed to the peak of Kulele, trudging through remote thorny gullies, with vigilant nerves. On our way a goat grazing in the open field gets startled by our creepy moves. It sneezes out an alarm and starts to jump in a wild escape move. It ends up trapped in its rope. Dangerous! My instincts force me to touch an entire goat for the first time in my life. The desperate bleater is self-trapped but keeps yelling and rolling from side to side. My fellow assessors have gone down another treacherous gorge, so I must handle this goat with my raw hands. Meanwhile some wild childhood scenes of a bully buck charging to butt on an opponent, replay in my head. You, know, the type of a billy goat that lifts its front legs like a wrestler before attacking. Yes, that scene! But this poor goat needs help. A simple strategy of scaring the goat round a twig helps to unwrap it from the tight rope. The goat is free at last and so am I to face the next trek. Kulele beckons!
I was not aware that Kulele hosts a young goat keeper, whose skills would have saved my mediocre goat rescue moves. Nicholas Mwandoe and his family have always known the hills as their home. They call him Nicky. He has picked cues on how to tend livestock, from his elders. With rare charm he plugs two baby goats in his embrace, as though they were the lastborn in the family. The brown and white duo dot every move Nicky makes in the shrub-perched parcels of land in Kulele. He has become a goat magnet; blades of grass are his sparky magic. The teen has found friendship in his twin little siblings, well, kids.

When schools close, Nicky brushes the bushes of Kulele to bring back a green treat. The kids are so fond of his hand-to-mouth feeding that they play lazy at grazing. Nicky knows that the way to their heart is through their ruminating chambers. And the duo dances to the green music whenever Nicky plays it right. His hands take the place of a choir master’s button, with the goats following back and forth as if to hit a high note on a piano. They are good at snacking. “These goats keep climbing on me and sniffing me for grass, because I give it to them every so often. They are used to the treat,” Nicky explains.

When there is no green grass in his hand, they stare at him as though to remind him that it is munch time. He gets the cue and dashes out for a timely treat. The goats don’t wait for him to serve them, they jump on him, poking his torn trousers which are hungry for a perch on the knees. They know he has goodies, and he yields to their playful pressure, until the mother goat returns from the fields.

Although Nicky did not fall in the bracket of respondents in the just concluded assessment, he is no doubt a case study who may benefit from the 6–12-year-old assessment tool that ALiVE piloted in February 2024 across three counties in Kenya (Nairobi, Kiambu and Kirinyaga). ALiVE co-created the tool with teachers in Kenya, with the understanding that teachers are the custodians of the curriculum and are better placed to not only integrate but also nurture and assess the life skills and values at classroom level. ALiVE is also working with teacher training colleges to ensure that teacher education curriculum incorporates life skills and values . ALiVE is also working with teacher training colleges to ensure that teacher education curriculum incorporates life skills and values
Back to Nicky’s goat world, the kids’ silly smear and random hugs are entertaining. As a climax, one of the goats goes round to Nicky’s back and rubs on him with a ton of a tickle. He laughs off this naughty move, mumbling a “leave me alone.” You should see how they make a goat convoy behind him to the water trough. It is a circus scene to behold! I had never seen such social bleaters! So, I learn that goats are not that stupid after all. They can be friendly creatures capable of lobbying for their needs. They can really stare at and connect with humans almost like dogs do. However, that may depend on the care and attention humans give in reciprocation. In Nicky’s case, the kids hug him and almost ‘talk’ to him in sweet bleats. Under the scorching sun, they scramble for Nicky’s lap, where they snooze away some silent siesta. He is an ardent nurturer. His hand, a feeder, his lap a pillow! To the kids he is the Greatest of All Time, he is Nicky the G.O.A.T!