The Search for Eternal Glory: Adventurists Africa Rally ’09

The goal: Travel from London to Cameroon via car to raise money for Cameroon farmers to receive sustainable farming training and resources such as livestock, seeks and trees.

Denizen is an official sponsor of Team UhNoooo, a charity rally team venturing on a rather out-of-the-box excursion. On December 13th, Rezhan Majid, Ryan Nishimoto anda beat-up Peugeot 106 and its 1L engine, will start an arduous 5-week, 10,000 mile journey from London’s Hyde Park to Kribi, Cameroon.

What do they want to accomplish? “Eternal glory. The ultimate road trip,” Rezhan said. “Who doesn’t want to get in a car with a good friend and drive a loosely charted course through Europe and Africa? … I hope at the end of it I get some invaluable life lessons you can’t learn from a classroom or a cubicle. And it’d be nice to come back without too many scrapes or bruises.”

Rezhan Majid, 25, is one half of Team UhNoooo. Originally a Malaysian, Rezhan was born in China, and has spent his life living in Malaysia, Washington DC, Nigeria, China, Chicago, and now currently resides in Kuala Lumpur. After quitting his job in July, he decided to take spend some time traveling a bit of the world before returning back home to Kuala Lumpur. His partner in crime, Ryan Nishimoto, hailing from Chicago, works for a non-profit called Crossroads for Kids near Boston.

The two signed up for this adventure almost on a whim and chose to support the Send-a-Cow charity. Rezhan and Ryan are required to raise a minimum of £1,000 pounds but hope to push their goal closer to £5,000 by December 13th, as well as any donations they can get for their own funds considering that their team is made up a “non-profit worker and voluntarily unemployed guy.”

Their excitement negates the cons that many people would see in this crazy, unconventional trip.

“I’m not sure that too many [TCKs] do these types of trips – but I have a feeling most want to,” Rezhan said. “It’s easy for us to want to accept new cultures and feel accepted into them — so it’s natural to feel comfortable jumping into a situation that requires us to assimilate.”

When asked what place along their journey route they are most excited/scared to travel through along the adventure Rezhan said, “It’ll be great to be able say we actually went to Timbuktu, who does that?”

“Hopefully our car holds up to make it the whole way,” he continues. “We’ve got a 12-year old Peugeot and between Ryan and I, we’ve got a grand combined total of zero mechanical know-how. He was in charge of getting car and I haven’t told him yet but I’m designating him team mechanic for when we break-down too.

Which portion of the trip does Rezhan fear the most?

“Probably Nigeria just because it is more urban and hectic. It will be a little bit of a homecoming for me though since my family lived there when I was six or so and my little sister was born there.”

This will be our first correspondence with Rezhan and Ryan as they prepare themselves for the departure next month and will be checking in with them all the way through their journey to Kribi. With the help of our fellow TCK community we hope that we can not only bring exposure and raise funds for Team UhNooo’s as they gear up for their December 13th launch into the unknown. If you would like to get involved and donate to their cause, please visit their site.