A good thing, among many, about Bill Fahey is his singular focus on a specific goal. Which is not to say that there is necessarily a clear path to achieving that goal. In fact, there seldom is. When you work with Bill, the tasks to complete a given project are never easy because the goal is so worthwhile, the reward so dependent upon the work undertaken. This also means that the man is capable of completely exhausting you in ways you never knew you could be exhausted. You give yourself to the pursuit of the project because you believe. And if you believe, you believe until the undertaking is completed. And if you make it to the end of the project, you start working on the next vision on the horizon. And so in this way, if you believe you believe forever.

I am writing this from the coffee table of my friend Alex Baron's apartment in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York. Alex has kindly let me sleep on his couch and convert his table to a work station for my various freelance writing projects while I find that always elusive Brooklyn sublet apartment. As you can tell, I have little money at present. I eat slices of pizza and drink water. It was not a particularly frugal thing for a money-strapped 25-year old aspiring musician to spend $1250 on a plane ticket to East Africa. But such is my belief in Bill Fahey, the Andover Youth Services staff and the message that they, and by proxy me, are spreading not just to our hometown community but all around the world.

That's just to say there were reasons I found myself on a recent Friday afternoon, when most people my age were presumably gainfully employed at something, sitting in a tiny room in a brick house without electricity in a village of tin-roofed and mud huts 8,000 miles from my home amongst a few dozen Kenyans from the village of Kisii drinking Coca-Cola and eating white bread.

A village elder wearing a tattered fedora rose in the darkened room to say that as a child he had always run away when he saw white people coming. The sentiment, I am sure shared by many Kenyans of his generation, was that white people were in his country to take goods and land and, not too too long ago, people. The small presence of our group, and others like us, were responsible for a cataclysmic shift in the mind of this old man. We came to the village bringing art supplies and musical instruments and recording equipment. We were there to give and learn and understand.

There is a girl at the Okari School whose mother was a surgeon in Nairobi who died of disease. Her father was a soldier who was killed in Uganda. We sat on the soccer field one afternoon talking about the differences between American and Kenyan children. She asked me what was important to American youth and I stumbled to answer it (I think I gave a vague and rambling treatise on capitalism and why Americans can act very entitled and I would have forgiven her for falling asleep). But when I asked her what was important to Kenyan children above all else this 12-year old orphan in an impoverished region of a third world country told me, “love and kindness.”

Andover Youth Services helped me to realize that I was part of a community when I was a somewhat lost teenager who started playing music with my friends and was shown that there was a group of people in my hometown who wanted to help me allow that passion to grow.
That band developed into a lifelong pursuit. Slowly we began to play outside of our hometown. Then we made a record. Then we went on tour. The first time we played Cambridge, Mass.' famed rock club the Middle East, I wore my Andover Youth Services sweatshirt on stage. When we went on our first tour, it was Bill Fahey we called from a rest stop in Indiana. I think it was a way to simply say, we are out here in the middle of nowhere but we come from somewhere.

It was a similar feeling when the voices of the kids from the Okari School joined with ours on the morning of our departure as we performed alongside them in their dining room. A community can be a group of people in ones hometown. Or it can be two groups of people from across a very big ocean who share a set of beliefs. And if you believe, you believe forever.

-David Tanklefsky

The AYS all star team had some very specific goals that we wanted to accomplish while down at the Okari School.

The Okari Recording Sessions

Grimis, comprised of three of the Youth Services favorite people, Pete, Dave and Andy, agreed to travel with us to Okari to help record a CD. This may seem like a somewhat simple task; however it presented us with an array of challenges. We would need many things to make this happen, including but not limited to a sound engineer, microphones, mic stands, musical instruments, laptops, hard drives, cables, power strips, extension cords and much more. We were grateful to Tom Blanfard, also known as T2, for offering to taking time off from a very busy schedule at Notre Dame to travel with us across the globe as the AYS Crew sound engineer.

Our plan was to pack as much equipment as we could obtain in and around Andover and purchase the remainder of what we needed in Nairobi. On the first morning of our journey we headed into Nairobi and proceeded to haggle with a variety of local music shops. After 3 hours of endless bartering, the prices were agreed upon and thousands of Shillings were exchanged. The AYS crew then headed down a back alley with 4 guitars, an electric keyboard, 2 congo drums, a bass drum pedal and a variety of handheld percussion instruments. We were excited about our purchases and knew that once the recording was done and the children had learned a bit on how to use them, the instruments would be a phenomenal donation to the school.

We loaded up the van with the musical instruments and sound recording equipment, about 100lbs. of art supplies, 180 t-shirts for the school, underwear and socks for the kids, loads of school supplies and 7 passengers skillfully placed in and around the masterful packing job of our driver Alex. We were jam packed and ready for action, but we all wondered if we would actually make the 6 hour journey from Nairobi to the school.

Upon arrival to the school, we converted the tent, which is used for guests to stay in, into a recording studio. We did scout out other areas beforehand, including the dining hall and some of the makeshift classrooms, however, in the end, decided that the tent would give us the best sound for recording.

The musical instruments generated a lot of excitement and shortly after our arrival we began to organize groups of students that would practice, perform and record songs. From morning til night, the tent would serve as a wonderful space for this to happen. The students at Okari were excited to sing traditional Swahili folk songs, gospel songs, Paul Simon and original songs by Grimis and even a song by the infamous Mark Brickman of Andover, Ma. A huge addition to our team was a Kenyan songwriter and musician, Michael Wambua who Bill met on his last journey to Africa and who was invited to travel to Kisii to record with the students and help us create the Okari CD.

After four days of rehearsing, performing and recording we ended up with over four hours of beautiful music that we hope to transform into a CD that will be out in the very near future.

The Okari Art Attack

On the last visit to Okari, Bill and Glenn both noticed a lack of color in and around the dining hall and classrooms of the school. With limited resources and a tight budget it is very hard for the teachers to offer any music or art to the students. Along with bringing instruments, performing music and recording a CD, we also wanted to offer the students an opportunity to create various art projects, including a mural. As mentioned above we travelled with close to 100lbs. of art supplies, which included paint, canvas, construction paper, glue, markers, crayons, colored pencils, brushes, scissors and materials to make bracelets– none of which existed at the school prior to our visit.

Currently there is a construction project underway at the school to create a new dormitory for the girls, which will also include in it, a room that will house a library and an art/music space. We decided that this would be the perfect space to transform into an art studio during our time and would also be home to the mural. The room needed some prep work, including the scraping and painting of the rough concrete walls and the finishing of a few uncompleted tables. Bill also decided to do some electrical work to light up the room and now knows what 240 volts of electricity feels like running through the human body. He now proclaims to have super human strength.

With the space cleaned, arranged and lit up we could now offer some art to the kids of Okari. We knew it would be hard, because at the Okari School anything new always attracts the interest of all 150 students. With this, we needed the help from the school’s principal (T1) and the teachers to coordinate small groups (35+) of students to participate in specific art activities. Tony arranged drawing stations, canvas painting and collage work, while also utilizing the help of Bill and the boys of Grimis to work with students painting the mural. It was a chaotic scene, however once the students were engaged, they worked hard and had fun creating their own masterpieces for hours a day. Each student at Okari had the chance to paint, draw, cut, paste and create in any way they wanted. Each student took great pride in their work and the work of others. They were also happy to clean all the brushes at the end of each session.

In a very short time our AYS team had managed to engage the entire Okari community in music and art projects. It was a beautiful thing to stand back and watch kids working on the mural, painting on canvasses, practicing a Grimis song, banging on the new drums and recording song after song in the tent.

After many months of planning, everything had come together right in front of our eyes. Two communities, AYS and the Okari School, thousands of miles apart, were becoming one. We were very thankful to be a part of it all.

A Day in the Life

Jambo, we are sitting in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam awaiting our returning flight home. We arrived to rainy Amsterdam at 5:30am and spent the last 20 minutes looking for power to charge our devices and gain access to the internet. As has been the theme over the last 10 days, none of our wonderful technology worked according to plan and we were forced to shell out 28 Euros to purchase an adapter that fit the outlet. We have many adapters, but getting them to actually work is a whole other story.

As we sit on the floor outside of gate F2 China Airlines (it was one of the only outlets near us that worked) we are trying to put in perspective our thoughts and feelings in regards to the journey that is coming to a close. So much has been accomplished in such a short amount of time. Folks that have taken the time to read this blog must understand that 7 days in the AYS life cycle is comparable to two months in most other organizations. We went at it for 15 hours a day and were relentless, feeling that we had some much to do, with so little time to do it.

It might be helpful for you to understand how the Okari community operates on a daily basis.

3:30am

Undomesticated dogs bark endlessly at what appears to be nothing. This continues, along with the occasional chicken and rooster for close to 2 hours.

4:30am

The sound of Okari School children beginning to stir as they leave their small metal clad dormitories signaling the start of another day

4:35am

The rooster located 20 feet from our tent proudly lets us know that it is time to lift up the mosquito nets, crawl out bed and get ourselves moving.

5:30am

The sun starts to creep over the beautiful land of Kisii.

5 – 7am

The kids are in their makeshift 10x10 classrooms constructed of wood and corrugated metal studying and preparing for the academic day. If we are awake enough, we try to assist. It is an awesome way to begin the day, as the kids are so alive, running, skipping and singing as the move from one classroom to the next – imagine if we all started our day that way.

7am

The cowbell rings signaling the start of breakfast, which typically consists of porridge and is prepared and served by the Okari cook Naomi. For the next 20 minutes the children mill about campus, eating, laughing and sharing stories of the previous day. Upon completion of their breakfast the children are required to wash their bowl and cup and return it to its place by their bunk in the cramped dorm. Each child has a very small trunk where they keep and store their personal items, which consists of very little. Can you imagine keeping everything you own in a two foot by three foot box? It’s hard to comprehend.

7:30am

Breakfast is over and the children congregate in the dining hall to sing a few songs. We notice that most of the songs that the children and teachers sing one way or another are praising their reverence to the God of their understanding. It is amazing how truly close the children are to one another, their teachers and to God.

7:45am to 12pm

The students are in their classes studying and learning from the teachers. There are roughly 150 students at Okari ranging from Preschool to Standard 8, which is equivalent to our elementary through middle school in Andover. The students are truly impressive because they speak in 3 different languages. Most students speak their tribal language, Swahili (the national language of Kenya) and very good English. It also should be noted that most teaching and learning is done in English. Despite their lack of resources, their educational focuses are very similar to those of ours in Andover; math, science, history, reading and writing. The main goal of the teachers is to prepare the students for a test that they will take at the end of 8^th grade. If they pass the test, they have the opportunity to move on to high school.

12pm

The students convene back in the dining hall to have lunch. After they have eaten the students are given roughly an hour break where you can find them running, playing and being social with each other. During this time the teachers can often be found kicking a ‘soccer ball’ or sitting in the shade of a tree with a group of students. The teachers are incredible people, who are truly dedicated to educating their students.

2 to 6pm

The kids are back in the classroom to continue the day’s studies. We were always welcome to sit in on the classes and participate in which ever subject was being taught. The students focus and ability to retain and learn was outstanding. Thank God they don’t have laptops, cell phones and Ipods.

6pm

The kids arrive back in the dining hall to have dinner – which seems to be the same each night, a plate of plantains and greens, with a cup of water. There is never any complaining and we have yet to see leftovers anywhere. We have to give a shout out to the Okari staff, as it is an amazing task to feed roughly 175 people, which includes the students, teachers and school staff on a daily basis on what is a very, VERY limited budget. As is with every meal, the children begin and end with singing, dancing and being thankful for what they have.

7 to 9pm

Here is an amazing fact…after dinner many of the teachers leave Okari to walk up to 5 miles back to their homes. Even more amazing, the class time spent after dinner and before bed is typically independent, with older kids teaching younger kids. It is a sight to behold.

9 to 9:30pm

The dining hall is packed with each and every student and whatever teachers and staff remain as the students perform a variety of songs and dance routines for each other. Obviously music is a huge part of the students’ lives, and Kenya as a whole. Every child can sing and dance – as they were born with the gift of rhythm in their soul. Their spirit, determination, laughter and songs has shown us that God truly is great.

10pm

The kids go to bed and within 15 minutes are ALL sound asleep…

10:15pm

The security staff at the school makes sure that we are safe in our tent and have all that we need for a peaceful nights rest.

We shall meet again at 4:30am.

At this point, you might be wondering where the AYS crew has been during this very busy Okari school day…stay tuned we shall let you know the very good news. As Tom, better known as T1, the principal of Okari continues to remind us, “Hakuna Mattata, no worries my friend…it is no problem”

Sawa Sawa, we shall talk to you soon my friends.

Three Days in Kisii

We’re spending our last night in the guest house at the Margaret Okari School tonight before moving along to the Masai Mara. We spent about eight hours a day recording many different student singers in lots of different variations. We recorded large singing choirs, smaller vocal groups, duets, soloists and even some songs written by Grimis and our friends. We could not be more excited about what this album is shaping up to be and the good it has the chance to do for the Okari School and these amazing kids.

The school and the Andover Youth Services crew also wants to give a huge thanks to those people from back home who donated education supplies, art supplies and clothes to the students and thank Pete’s mom for the special dolls she made for the kids.

The past three days with the students of the Margaret Okari School have been really profound. These kids are unbelievable in their enthusiasm, their spirit and their wisdom. At some point there will be time to collect all of our thoughts on this experience, but for now, a few enlightening tales from Africa:

***Yesterday Andy went down to a tree on the Okari School land with a number of the students and their music teacher Jared Andamo. Mr. Andamo told the assembled group, Only those of you telling stories can stay; the rest must go now. Andy said a little girl got up and said, I have a story, God can count all the hairs on your head…Thank you.

***Grimis has assembled a small All-Star group of singers who helped us record two of our newer songs, “Four Years” and “White Apples and the Taste of Stone” as well as a song by a friend of ours, “Melanie,” and a Paul Simon cover. Their ability to grasp the songs and sing them with such love and conviction is startling. Their sweet accented English sounds so pure and untouched. It is really beautiful. Also, it seems like every single kid in this school has an incredible sense of inner rhythm. They are loving the beats Pete has been dropping on the congas.

My favorite moment of the recording sessions came today when we taught a small group Paul Simon’s “Born at the Right Time.” It was very moving to hear these students, most of them orphaned after AIDS took their parents, singing the words Never been lonely/Never been lied to/Never had to scuffle in fear/Nothing denied to/Born at the instant the church bells chimed/The whole world whispering/You’re born at the right time. The reality, it would seem, is that these kids have most certainly been lonely and fearful and had very much---friends, family, material goods---denied them. But spending a few days with these kids made it clear that the words to that song couldn’t ring truer. And where do myself and our crew fit in? I’ll let Paul Simon say it best: Me and my buddies, we are travelling people.

***Peg Campbell and Glenn Wilson, both past visitors to the Okari School, advised us as to what a force of nature the school’s founder Kwamboka Okari is and they were very right. This afternoon she took us to visit the village elders a little ways down the road from the school. We went to a man named Tom’s house and walked through his backyard into his home where five very old men sat on wooden chairs at the back of the room with a number of younger locals sitting on stools around the room.

Tom welcomed us and we all ate the bread and drank the sodas we had brought. Then the elders spoke to us through translators. One old man said that when he was growing up if he saw a white man coming, he would run in the other direction. He never imagined a day when white people would come into his village as revered guests. The younger people’s respect for their elders was palpable. Many of the elders spoke of their desire to visit America. One said he wanted to travel to America and pick up his education where he had left off in Kenya decades ago.

The concept of America among the students and villagers is fascinating. I wonder what many of them might think upon finally arriving in our country and seeing a land of shopping malls and super highways? Theirs seems like an America of the mind just as our conception of Africa was an Africa of the mind before we came here and saw some of it for ourselves.

***A little girl came up to Pete today and said “Are you leaving tomorrow?” “Yes,” said Pete. “We will miss you very much.”

***Our friend Mark is going to be really psyched that a cadre of Kenyan school children now know all the words to his song “Melanie.” They even asked me to write out all the lyrics for them to keep. They now know where Nantucket is.

***Bill brought one of the elders a poster of President Obama. The villagers all erupted in applause and two old men rose and cheered. Bill had promised to bring a poster back upon his return to the village. “You are a good man,” one of the elders said to him. “You kept your promise.”

Lots of photos and videos to come…stay tuned. Off to the Masai Mara tomorrow to see more beautiful sights and get up close with some animals.

Nairobi to Kisii

Greetings from Nairobi. We got in last night and stayed at the beautiful Fairview Hotel across the street from the Israeli embassy. We awoke early this morning for an amazing breakfast and then went into Nairobi to buy instruments to take to the students of the Okari School. We bought a bunch of acoustic guitars, some congas and percussion instruments and a keyboard. We also met up with Bill's friend Michael, a local guitarist and songwriter who led us all in a rousing sing-a-long in the matata as we rode from the streets back up to our hotel. The crew and our terrific driver Alex is currently loading up the van (which is totally packed to the gills) and preparing for our ride west to the village of Kisii. We'll be there for four nights working with the kids there.

Here We Go Again

The Youth Services crew is back in the saddle again. It’s Monday and we are sitting in Logan airport waiting for the first leg of our trip back to the Margaret Okari School. We’ve eaten dinner and are listening to Bill tell AYS travel stories (anyone remember when AYS went to New Orleans to help the victims of Katrina?). Honestly, does anyone tell better stories than Bill Fahey? Anyone? We didn’t think so.

Our current travel crew consists of Bill and Summer Fahey, Tony Lombardi, Andy Doherty and David Tanklefsky. We arrive in Amsterdam tomorrow morning where we are meeting up with Pete Michelinie and Thomas Blanford. Pete checked in a few hours ago from JFK where he had flown in to from Portland, Oregon. The plan is to get into Nairobi Tuesday evening and try to meet up with Andoverite Lisa Mueller, who now lives in Nairobi with her husband Kristofer and her young daughter Grace. Wednesday morning we are leaving for the village of Kisii for four days of recording, art projects and spending time with the students of the school and the villagers. This afternoon at the AYS Pearson Street home we packed a ton of art supplies and other items for the students including candy, music paper and writing utensils. A ton of stuff is packed inside a big surfboard case. We brought a guitar, a bunch of cameras and digital media stuff in addition to the recording equipment. We ain’t rollin’ light this time around.

Last night a bunch of us had dinner at Bertucci’s in North Andover and were treated to a great presentation by Peg Campbell, a big supporter of the Margaret Okari School and someone who has been a great help in getting this trip off the ground.

We just ate some $19 burritos from Fresh City and Summer got a burger from Fuddruckers (we nabbed a few of her fries when she wasn’t looking shhhh don’t tell anyone). Departing for Amsterdam in 39 minutes! Talk to you in Africa!

-From the four rookies and their fearless leader.

The Global Neighborhood

After a long journey, with much preparation, time and effort, we finally landed on the moon. We are now in the world of the global neighborhood. Because of the efforts of Susan Frey and World Wide Waldens, we overcame our technical difficulties and at 6am Kisii time and 11pm Concord time, we connected the Kenyan students with the Walden Youth Summit Team and it was undoubtedly a great success.

The Kenyan team in Concord, led by our good friend Kate, greeted our Okari School students with a few verses from "This Land is Our Land". The Okari students sang the Kenyan National Anthem in return. The Concord team opened the summit with some great questions for our team. They wanted to know what projects have been going on at the Okari School, an explanation of the water catchment systems, tree planting, organic farming, and the importance of the chicken farming. Our students were a little shy at first and did a really awesome job explaining each of the projects to the young people in Concord. We are proud of them because English is their second language and they practiced hard to prepare their answers in English for those listening in at the Thoreau Institute. It was then the Okari students turn to ask questions of the Walden group. They asked about sustainable projects going on in the US and there was some funny conversation about the issue of water - one of the Kenyan students asked the kids in Concord if they had to "walk to the river" to get their water. They also asked if the students in America eat snakes - which made everyone laugh. Somehow there is rumor going around Kisii that Americans eat snakes. We think that it was Mike, the President of the Board of the Margaret Okari School, spreading these tales to the kids at the school.

After much discussion on sustainable communities, the importance of water and food, we lightened up the summit and let the students go freestyle back and forth with questions about their respective lifestyles. Vincent, one of our Okari students, asked, "What do you do in your lazy time?" Which brought about laughs on both continents. But it was clear that in two different parts of the world and different cultures, they had a lot in common as young people. Both groups loved music, sports, and an interest in making this world a better place for all those in the present and those to come in the future. We commend both groups for doing an outstanding job and being the pioneers in creating the global neighborhood.

For us it was inspiring to see the young people connect and share common goal and purpose. You have to understand that our group had never seen a computer until we showed up. They had never used a keyboard, the internet, google or skype. The Okari students were extremely happy that they could see and talk with students all the way in America. They thoroughly enjoyed their part in the youth summit and the connection they had with other students. They felt like they had learned a lot about what is going on in America and felt pride about all the projects that had been taking place at the Okari School in the last year. We hope that this will inspire the students to continue to work hard and help Mother Earth and we hope anyone reading this will take action in their own town, neighborhood, or city.

You have done a good thing at World Wide Waldens and thanks for making us a part of it. One thing is for sure - we have found our next project at Andover Youth Services. Our World Wide Walden is the Margaret Okari School. We have made lots of powerful connections with the students, the elders of the community, and Kwamboka Okari - our dynamic, thoughtful, and visionary leader. We have been welcomed into the community of Kisii and we are now family. We have worked hard the last 15 years to create community in everything we do at the Youth Services and we will now take that experience, strength and hope to our beautiful new friends at the Margaret Okari School. We hope you come along for the ride because if you know anything about us, we believe that people are everything. Our hope is to help this slice of heaven continue to operate, get the resource it truly deserves, help thousands of kids who are now orphans get a chance to live a purposeful life. Please call us or email us at the Youth Services and become part of the AYS Team that will give Kisii an endless stream of support and love.

We are preparing to leave which will be a huge challenge for us. In a very short time we have become connected to the students and teachers in an indescribable way. Both sides are not going to want to say goodbye. Colton has had an amazing experience and we are contemplating leaving him here and coming back next year to see how he is doing. The funny thing is: he is okay with that. If you are reading this, it should help you get a greater understanding of what has occurred this week. For now it is easier for us to say, "Asante sana kwaheri."

Bill, Colton and Glenn

The final Colton Fact is: Kenya has changed him for the better. He is an expert in Swahili and made many new friends. And that is that.