BY PATRICK NEAS SPECIAL TO THE STAR JULY 26, 2024 5:30 AM
Jamea Sale with some of the Kenyan students who have benefited from her work bringing music to their schools. Gregory Wegst
It takes more than a village to teach a child music in the remote corners of Kenya.
In the impoverished countryside where bare necessities are often lacking, it also takes the help of trained musicians like Jamea Sale and the donations of good-hearted folks in Kansas City. Through Sale’s training of local Kenyan teachers and the instruments donors are providing, lives are being profoundly changed.
In 2000, the Kenyan government decided their schools should focus on math, science and history, and for all practical purposes, music was dropped as a course of study. Realizing the deleterious effect the lack of music has had on the nation’s academics as a whole, it has decided to restart its music curriculum. But Kenya now finds itself with a severe shortage of music teachers and instruments.
Sale grew up in an environment that was much more encouraging of music. She hails from Colby, Kansas, which is also the hometown of operatic bass Samuel Ramey and organist Jan Kraybill.
“It was a town pretty invested in music, Sale said. At school, “we had lots of opportunities to sing and do acting. I could take piano lessons because there was a piano instructor on staff. You could take voice lessons and instrumental lessons all the way through school. My family had a lot of love for music, so that was really encouraging to me, as well.”
Sale studied music education at Kansas State University, but after graduation, she pursued a non-musical career for 20 years. She would eventually join the William Baker Festival Singers and get a master’s degree in voice science at the University of Kansas.
“I became convinced that I wanted to do my Ph.D., as well,” she said.
After singing with the Festival Singers for several years, Sale was appointed executive associate director of the William Baker Choral Foundation, and then the director of the foundation’s Institute for Healthy Singing and Voice Research.
“Our full mission at the Institute for Healthy Singing is to promote vocal health for all singers of all ages and levels of achievement for life,” Sale said. “Whether you’re a child or an aging adult, we want you to have the ability to sing throughout your lifetime with healthy practices and to learn how to do singing efficiently.”
In 2021, Gregory Wegst, who is on the advisory board of the institute, visited Kenya, and heard that the Kenyan government was adding music to the curriculum for the first time in almost 25 years. When Wegst returned to the United States, he informed the choral foundation about the situation and the urgent need they had for music teachers and instruments.
“Greg has connections in the Kenyan countryside, the Nandi Hills, which is tea country,” Sale said. “There was a cottage and a place we could stay. He asked if we’d be interested in sending a team to teach them music.”
Jamea Sale, Niccole Williams, and Gregory Wegst in Kenya, overlooking the Nandi Hills with Kenyan friends. GREGORY WEGST
When Sale arrived in Kenya, she encountered desperate poverty alongside glorious natural landscapes.
“Overlooking tea fields, the vista is so breathtaking,” Sale said. “But some of the homes are very rudimentary. Many of the homes in the country do not have plumbing, they do not have electricity. A home consists of a little hut and maybe a pantry that consists of just some dishes sitting on the floor, often dirt floors. They cook on wood outside.”
Sale recalled one encounter that perfectly captured the dichotomy between human suffering and uplifting natural beauty.
“The village elder was introducing us to people, and he stopped at this one hut, and a woman came out,” Sale said. “We find out her 10-year-old granddaughter is living with her, and she has cerebral palsy, which is a profound thing to deal with in a hut with no running water. He brought the little girl out and laid her on a blanket. Her legs are stiff, her arms are still. She has no mobility whatsoever, but as I was talking with her, I turned to look at the vista that she was looking at, and people would give a million dollars to have that view.”
Sale says that the villagers at first were wary, but soon welcomed the Westerners with open arms and hands.
“They want to hold your hand,” she said. “In the Kenyan culture, that means I have seen you. We have met and we have a relationship. They’re very generous people. I walked up into the hills with a social worker, and we saw a lot of people who were in pretty desperate situations, but when we arrived back at our cottage, people had dropped off eggs and corn on the cob and bananas as gifts for us, just because we walked up to say hello.”
The Kenyans are also grateful for music. Sale and her team, which includes Niccole Wiliams, education director for the Institute for Healthy Singing, have been making great strides training teachers and teaching students. They’ve also been bringing lots of instruments donated by Kansas City area individuals and organizations.
“We’ve sent hundreds over, from people who have heard about what we’re doing or maybe who sing in our choruses,” Sale said. “One school had a bunch of ukuleles they weren’t going to use anymore, and they just gave them to us. It’s not just instruments, it’s also teaching materials, like piano books from a piano educator who was going to retire. That kind of stuff really was amazing to me and very helpful. We also have brought a lot of instruments ourselves in suitcases when we travel there.”
A Kenyan girl named Vern was thrilled to be given a trumpet. “She laughed with joy, she was so excited,” said Jamea Sale. GREGORY WEGST
Sale says she’s planning many more trips to Kenya and wants to bring lots of instruments with her. One of the recipients is especially meaningful to Sale. A young girl named Vern had been playing trumpet in a band in Nairobi, but then she started to attend a different school that didn’t have any instruments.
“She was like, well, I guess that’s that for the trumpet,” Sale said. “But she heard about us coming, and she asked the principal if it’d be possible for her to get a trumpet. Well, lo and behold, I think practically the day before I left Kansas City, somebody had given us a trumpet, and I threw it into a suitcase. We called in Vern, and she laughed with joy, she was so excited.”
A couple of days later, the entire student body put on a talent show. Vern played her trumpet.
“She played ‘Ode to Joy,’” Sale said. “She also gave a little talk and concluded it by saying, ‘Music will take you places.’ It was just a chilling moment for all of us because she got it. She was saying what we felt for these students.”
For more information, see healthysinging.org.