In the last two weeks I’ve been darting around Nairobi interviewing contacts, collecting information, finalizing logistics and more. In less than a week I drive down to Tanzania for the beginning of a whirlwind month: first to Mt. Meru for about a week, then to Kilimanjaro for 10 days, then immediately back up to Mt. Kenya for over two weeks. During these expeditions I’ll do the majority of my filming, fighting cold, exhaustion, and bad weather to find and tell the story I came here for.

Although in many ways I started well over a year ago, it feels like I’m finally going to be able to sink my teeth into this project, finally start making real, tangible progress. The unknowns (and nothing else) have been looming over my head for weeks and have at times quite intimidated me (what have I gotten myself into??). What happens if I neglected some important form? What happens if my equipment fails or the mountain proves too difficult? What happens if I can’t tell an important story?

I’ve made a habit of jumping into the deep end of whatever I pursue, and this project is no different. It’s bigger, more complex, and more significant than anything I’ve ever produced, and here in early throes it feels like an untamed beast. I am afraid of failure, of disappointing everyone who’s helped me put this together.

Thankfully, the last few weeks have shown me that I can do this. After working up the nerve to start cold-calling people, I’ve contacted almost a dozen experienced mountain guides, tour operators, climbers, and other people connected to the mountain of East Africa in addition to the experts working for KG Mountain Expeditions, my sponsor program. I’ve received nothing but positive feedback about the project and excitement to be involved. It seems that many people here share my passion for the African mountain culture and want to raise awareness of its unique benefits and challenges.

Sometimes, it seems, just one person needs to dream a little too big and everyone else will appear as if out of nowhere.

Njenga Mungai, a long-time mountain guide and outdoor instructor

John, one of many friendly Kenyans helping me learn Swahili

In my recent excursions making contacts, I’ve encountered two infamous African stereotypes and found them to be simultaneously very true and also more nuanced than one would expect.

The first is the stereotype that African governments are stagnated by corruption and petty grandstanding. Because I will be filming in several national parks of Kenya and Tanzania, a significant part of the logistical process is acquiring film permits. My contacts at KG Mountain Expeditions were able to smooth over the process with the Kenya Wildlife Service and help get much of the fee waived, but the Tanzania National Park Authority (TANAPA) proved to be more tricky. There’s a lengthy application intended to suck large media companies like National Geographic and the BBC for all their worth (Kilimanjaro is a major revenue source for Tanzania). A tiny student production like mine shouldn’t even register, but I still had to go through the same process, which involved numerous trips deep into downtown Nairobi to visit the Tanzanian High Commission high in a dilapidated skyscraper to try and convince them not to charge me thousands of dollars that I don’t have.

At one point, they rejected my application at a cursory glance because I addressed a cover letter “To whom it may concern” instead of “To the Tanzanian High Commission in Nairobi,” despite having their exact address in the top corner. They wouldn’t even look at the rest of the application; they seemed to think that I was being arrogant and disrespectful. It was such a petty detail that I almost lost my temper before remembering that my whole film depending on not offending this particular secretary, so I humbly retreated and fought my way back through the smog and dust of downtown to change 5 words on a new 15-page form. Considering it takes up to two hours of standstill traffic to get into town, I had plenty of time to stew. After two more infuriating visits and several pleading phone calls, I finally walked out with a single piece of paper bearing their light purple stamp of approval, my ticket to Tanzania. The process depended on groveling to the sort of compensatory grandiosity that plagues African bureaucracy.

The second stereotype: Kenyan time. Somehow being raised in Africa didn’t free me from the impeccable time-keeping of Western culture. I’m always 10 minutes early to any event or meeting, lateness being the most grievous of offenses.

But in Kenya, you arrive when you arrive and you’re done when you’re done. Specific times that you might agree upon are pure formality. My first encounter with this phenomenon was when I visited a contact named John Githae, a long-time rescue ranger on Mt. Kenya who now operated a ropes course on the outskirts of Nairobi. We had agreed via email that I would drive up for a few hours to meet and interview John about his time on the mountain. As I should have expected, this turned into a 10-hour visit punctuated by two two-breaks, a hardy lunch of goat meat, a ropes course experience, lengthy introductions to every employee of the facility, and more than anything, stories. I managed a brief interview 30 minutes before I left at 6 PM.

Checking out the ropes course with John

The second time I visited John I had agreed to photograph a group event he was hosting in an effort to foster the relationship between us. I foolishly showed up at 10:30 AM for an 11 o’clock group, and stayed until they finally trickled in at 3 PM.

Yet the most impressive implementation of Kenyan temporal relativity occurred a few days ago when I arranged to meet a woman named Connie at her home in a wealthy suburb of Nairobi. Connie’s son had died in a tragic accident on Mt. Kenya from altitude sickness. She had graciously agreed to tell me the story and to discuss how to raise safety standards on the mountain. I arrived at 3 PM and received a call that would be a bit late. No worries, I said, and sat down to practice Swahili with her gardener John until she arrived at her own home three hours later. She was mildly apologetic but generally unbothered by the whole affair. Of course, the light for filming was gone at that point, but she insisted I stay for dinner, tea, and conversation late into the night.

It turns out that in Africa, personality is more important than punctuality, and relationships more important than efficiency. Connie and John were interested in my project, but they were much more interested in me. They wanted to be friends first, associates second. Even at the Tanzanian High Commission, there was an implicit camaraderie necessary to proceed. Any sign of disrespect would grind progress to a halt. Africans are unfailingly gracious and welcoming as long as you reciprocate their openness. In the process of creating this film, I will need to learn, most of all, to slow down a bit and know people.

I returned to Connie’s house this Monday to complete the interview. Ironically, I got dreadfully lost in south Nairobi and arrived an hour late. She didn’t mind.

A quick note on traffic:

I’m not sure how it’s possible, but there are both more vehicles and more pedestrians in Nairobi than anywhere I’ve ever been. You would think that one would ameliorate the other, but instead the wheeled and walking traffics seem to feed off of each other. It’s as though there’s an assumption that the more cars are crammed together, the more people should be hopping in and out of the road, dodging mirrors, slapping windshields, maybe trying to sell you some bootlegged DVDs or a bag of mangoes.

Sometimes the congestion comes from a lorry stopped dead in the middle of the highway, sometimes from a mismanaged roundabout with laughably ineffectual traffic lights, but most of the time is just the inevitable result of too many cars in too little space. The pedestrians might enter a variety of bus-like contraptions, some more derelict than others, stacked 30 feet high with bags of charcoal or leaving a wake of feathers fluttering to the street from hundreds of live chickens strapped to the roofrack. Each bus or matatu has an individualized paint job, proclaiming in diverse and garish colors that “JESUS NEVER FAILS” or “PITTSBURGH STEELERS” (go figure) or my personal favorite, “HITLER” emblazoned above the windshield. The flow of people to and from these vehicles is so fluid and perpetual that many just drive with the sliding door open, a conductor of sorts leaning out the side barking at oblivious Toyotas and tossing one-liners at passersby.

Rather than the alluring current of interstate headlights that evokes a steady rippling stream, Nairobi feels like the thick, muddy trudging of the Ewaso Ngiro river, sucking in all the detritus and dirt that comes anywhere close. But what’s really unique is the bizarre passivity of it all. Unlike New York City or Manila or New Delhi, there’s no frantic honking or simmering desperation in the gridlock. The citizens have surrendered, the commuters capitulated. Against this great and terrible machine, there is no victory.

Instead, as I look around this vision of dancing red lights–skyscrapers to the my right, Uhuru park to my left, I see amiable Kenyans chatting away in their cars, buying sodas from hawkers, gazing blankly into space. There’s no rush here. Haraka haraka, hakuna baraka. Hurry, hurry, and there is no blessing.

This is the great paradox of Nairobi: a deep calm, almost lethargic, that informs everything from traffic patterns to bureaucratic processes to societal practices. What about the van rumbling past me in the rocky ditch that serves as a shoulder to the already potholed road, you ask? What about the terrifying chaos of an ungoverned intersection? These are but little whirlpools fighting desperately to survive before being absorbed once more into the great dull march of the city.

And because we’ve accepted this paradox, one learns to enjoys it. The three lanes that merge into one with no warning, the jovial drunkard knocking on your window, the pikipikis darting in front of you, borrowing some paint–these things become delightful little idiosyncrasies. You can never make sense of the car-to-street-to-person ratio, so you let it go. You can’t turn down the matatu’s blaring reggae, so you sing along.

We all just sing along.