Marc Silver

So I finally did it. I went and took a goat yoga class. As the editor of the Goats and Soda blog, I felt it was my duty.

Goat yoga is one of those things that sound like a joke. But it is very real.

The idea is pretty simple: A yoga teacher leads a class of humans while goats interact with the yogis.

Preferably the goats are kids because, really, you wouldn't want a 30-pound goat climbing on you. Or butting heads with you.

In 2015, I heard about this made-up holiday called "World Kindness Day" and thought it would be interesting to talk to someone whose life had been changed by the kindness of strangers. A contact put me in touch with Kennedy Odede.

As the editor of a blog called Goats and Soda (see this story for the explanation behind the name), I'm always interested in the latest goat research.

So I was definitely hooked by a press release that declared, "Goats prefer happy people."

He was 11 years old. He lived in Niamey, the capital of Niger. And he'd never had a chance to go to school.

"Education in my country sucks," he says.

So he played soccer on the streets.

Then he had an idea. The father of a friend owned a company that made leather goods. Soumana Saley decided he wanted to learn to be a leather craftsman. "I really liked the work," he remembers.

Editor's Note: In 2016, Anthony Bourdain visited Senegal and spoke with NPR's Africa correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. Their meal and conversation were filmed for his travel-food show Parts Unknown on CNN. With the news of Bourdain's death, we wanted to revisit our interview with Quist-Arcton about that day.