As told by Nick Redmayne, head of corporate social responsibility at Cellusys:
“Remember me? We’re still doing it.” Via an unexpected WhatsApp call, Dawood’s voice filtered into my apartment, a determined, joyful madness counteracting winter gloom.
“Yes. We’re thinking four Land Rover Discoveries, leaving Barcelona end of August, arriving Cape Town end of November. I’ve looked at Google Maps. How hard can it be? I’ll send you the spreadsheet. Oh, and come to Barcelona next week.”
And so it began again, an endeavour initially laid low by Covid, once more alive and kicking, a tumbling ball of energy and possibilities that defied the inertia of disbelief – mine, at any rate.
Founded in Dublin and delivering roaming, fraud and security, and signalling and analytics systems to mobile operators worldwide over the past 20 years in Europe, Africa and beyond, Cellusys has always been an ambitious organisation that set its sights on far-flung destinations. But maybe not quite in this way.
Journey of discovery
Amid the telecoms buzz of the Mobile World Congress in 2023, the meeting at the Cellusys Barcelona offices offered a chance to sit around the same table and pose potentially awkward questions, not least why would a sane person attempt a trans-Africa expedition through more than 20 countries, covering over 15,000km, in pretty but notoriously unreliable Land Rover Discoveries? So that was instantly changed to more reliable Toyota Land Cruisers.
Not only that, but our African odyssey was ultimately so successful that we also ended up travelling on to countries in the Middle East and were due to head through Europe at the time of writing in a journey ultimately lasting three years (see ‘The expedition in brief’).
Anyway, in Barcelona we were committed and we had to start somewhere. Throughout planning, a question often asked was “What’s the purpose of the trip?” Our route through northern, western and southern Africa included meetings with existing and prospective customers.
We’ve also often striven to gain an understanding on the ground of the operating environment and the challenges our clients must steer through as they endeavour to provide connectivity services across regions. But to describe the journey as ‘public relations’, ‘a sales trip’ or ‘a marketing exercise’ didn’t cover the half of it.
Instead of flexing the company credit card and hopping on a plane, by driving across the continent we were choosing to do something undeniably hard. Perhaps that was the rationale – to test ourselves, to explore beyond our comfort zone? In fact, the journey’s meaning became clear incrementally, only as hundreds of miles became thousands. And in the end, it simply worked.
Heading south
We eventually set off in October, later again than planned. Surmounting breakdowns – yes, even Land Cruisers can fail – plus contaminated fuel, fake spare parts, shocking roads, closed borders, a jailbreak due to a photo-related incident, and elemental storms, we just kept going, always heading south.
Meeting clients face to face, particularly across Africa, is hugely important for building trust. It’s one thing to speak online and entirely another to be on the ground. After overcoming the initial incredulity that we’d driven from Barcelona, with our somewhat dusty cars parked outside as proof, we always had stories to exchange.
Questions that previously no one knew to ask were front and centre. The team saw first-hand how Cellusys products were used, where they were strong and where they could be improved. Relationships were strengthened to everyone’s advantage.
To be clear, the journey was not a holiday. There were no passengers. Those team members not driving all had work to do, and to facilitate this we had to stay connected. We lived and breathed mobile telecoms, gaining useful insights into the reality of how well networks worked and how they were employed by subscribers. Aside from the cars themselves, it was the mobile networks we powered that got us to our next destination.
Reaching out and learning
Outreach, too, was always part of the plan. In Morocco, we’d arrived shortly after an earthquake that had killed almost 3,000 people. Driving into the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, in the village of Amlougui, we supported reconstruction work and the creation of a community working hub enabling women’s economic empowerment.
Elsewhere, in Ghana, the Cellusys team established a computer code camp workshop that has to date seen over 170 students from underprivileged backgrounds graduate a 12-month course with valuable new skills in a programme that continues today.
However, the journey was not all about teaching. We learnt a lot, too, about ourselves and about our individual and collective strengths and weaknesses. We all have them, but awareness is a useful skill.
We also discovered, or perhaps rediscovered, immense resilience in the face of adversity and honed our problem-solving skills, while sheer determination became an identifiable and powerful force. Whatever obstacles we encountered, we found a way through and, in the end, got things done.
It’s true that there was an immense feeling of satisfaction upon approaching our destination, Cape Town. We’d succeeded. We were proud of that success, the long miles, the struggles, the willpower to keep going through some very testing scenarios. As team leader Iyad Al Shihabi, general manager for the Middle East at Cellusys, said, “There’s always a way.”
Taking stock
Reflecting on five-and-a-half months of hard travelling, we were conscious of a huge debt of gratitude to all those that had helped us along the way – whether clients, partners or people from all walks of life who we had never previously met.
If there was ever a reminder that most people, exempting Lagos police officers and a similarly disreputable cabal of Mauritanian customs officials, are good-natured, collaborative and want to help, this was it: the kindness of strangers is real.
All of us had changed and grown. Preconceptions about Africa had been overturned. Challenges were faced, but outweighing these was a sense of growing energy and opportunity. As Iyad concluded, “The Africa I drove through was not the Africa I’d visited previously.”
Three years later, the Cellusys odyssey continues. From Cape Town, the cars headed north as far as Rwanda, eventually leaving Africa from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania bound for the Gulf. Most recently, through perseverance and sheer force of will, the team crossed an ostensibly closed border from northern Syria’s Idlib province into Turkey.
At the time of writing, the loop across Europe lay ahead before arrival this October for Capacity Europe in London and then WAS#24 in Dublin, Ireland. Thereafter, the journey will surely continue. Cellusys itself keeps moving, exploring and, more often than not, choosing the less obvious way
The expedition in brief
The Cellusys expedition started in October 2023 and at the time of writing had included 28 staff, customers and partners of Cellusys, covering nearly 34,000km through around 40 countries and territories.
It began with training in the UK and passed through Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey.
At the time of writing, the journey was then due to move onwards through Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and France, before returning to the UK for Capacity Europe in London and, finally, to WAS#24 in Dublin, Ireland.
