What I Learned Visiting Water-Stressed Areas & Climbing The Tallest Mountain In Africa

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Hey Friends,

I spent the last ten days in Eastern Africa visiting water-stressed communities & climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with The Chris Long Foundation.

It was an incredible experience — we visited remote villages and primary schools that had recently received solar-powered water wells, and the overflow of happiness and gratitude that we felt in return is still difficult to express through words.

But considering many of you stepped up and donated to the cause, I wanted to send a quick recap of the trip before we get back to our regular email cadence next week.

In total, the group that I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro with raised over $140k, which will fund multiple water wells & provide clean, accessible water to thousands of people.

Specifically, I was able to raise nearly $23,000 through 130 donations. So thank all of you so much — that’s an incredible outcome and something I’m really proud of.

And rather than bore you with the intimate details of the trip via email on this fantastic Friday, I wanted to do something a little different, so I recorded a solo-podcast episode breaking it all and provided some pictures of the trip below.

You can listen to the podcast here — I discuss what the villages and schools were like, how hard it was to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and a few things I learned along the way.

Enjoy!

Let’s start with the remote village we visited on our first day in Tanzania.

The village was about 2:30 to 3 hours outside of the main town of Arusha—that’s where our hotel was located—and the last 2+ hours of the drive are through dirt roads that are bumpy, flooded, and full of livestock.

This community received a water well about a year ago, but for context, before they received the well, women and children were walking up to 30 kilometers per day to get water — that’s 18 miles and would take an average person 5+ hours to walk.

And keep in mind, the water they were walking 5+ hours to get wasn’t clean either.

Similar to other places we visited within the country, the children were incredible.

Here’s a picture I took on the way in — it started with one child behind the tree, but every time I would make a funny face, they would giggle and get another friend.

It ended with 15+ kids and me looking silly when they stopped laughing at my jokes!

Here’s an example of what homes looked like in the village.

Most of the houses were only a couple hundred square feet and made out of mud and sticks banded together to form a structure.

But as you can see on the far right, convenient access to an abundant amount of water has given the community the ability to start building stable homes by mixing concrete.

And this is the actual water well that the village received.

One of the things that I thought was interesting is that access to the water isn’t a free-for-all or even conducted via an honor system. Instead, a “community water manager” sits at the well during the day and unlocks it whenever someone arrives to pay the $1 to $2 fee per liter.

By charging people within the community a small fee for access to water, the village has already built up a savings account with about $3,000 for maintenance and repairs.

In total, this well services about 15,000 people, or about 3-5x the typical amount.

The man on the right in this photo is the village elder.

Elders are in charge with “keeping the values, norms, and traditions of the tribe alive by instructing, teaching, and enforcing the new generation” — aka he runs the village.

He said a prayer when we arrived, thanked us for the work that we are doing, and ended his speech with a line that I’ll never forget: “To us, water is life!”

We visited two primary schools on the second day of the trip — these pictures were taken at the first primary school.

One of the things I didn’t know beforehand was that nearly 40% of the Tanzanian population is Muslim, and it’s the second-largest religious group in the country.

The other thing that surprised me is that until recently, the government only required Tanzanian children to attend seven years of primary school (K-6th grade), while secondary school and advanced education (high school & university) were optional.

That has since changed, and secondary education is now required — early data suggests that it is already having a positive impact on economic growth and poverty reduction.

And although everyone speaks Swahili as the official national language, many students in town are taught English and have a basic understanding of the language.

This is a picture of the water well that was installed at the same school 2-3 years prior.

All of the water wells are solar-powered, contain 10,000-liter tanks on top for storage, and typically have multiple distribution points throughout the area for easy access.

These next few pictures are from the second primary school that we visited.

This school was slightly larger than the first—3,000 students vs. 1,500 students—and we were greeted with a Tanzanian routine performed by the cultural dance class.

We later spent some time kicking around a soccer ball and throwing the football, but the kids were an absolute pleasure to be around and couldn’t stop smiling.

If you can’t already tell, the kids wanted to be in every possible picture :)

This was one of my favorite pictures from the entire trip — it’s difficult to express just how much clean, accessible water means to these kids, but these smiles say it all.

And shoutout to former NFL player Branden Albert, who went to the University of Virginia, was drafted 15th overall in the 2008 NFL draft and played nine seasons for the Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, and Jacksonville Jaguars.

The water well at this school was funded entirely by him, and he has personally funded multiple other wells throughout Africa — noted good guy!

And last but not least, here are a few pictures of our hike up Mount Kilimanjaro — the tallest mountain in Africa and the largest free-standing mountain in the world.

The hike took six days in total & this is what our daily schedule looked like:

• 6 am: Wake up

• 7 am: Breakfast

• 8 am: Start hiking

• 1 pm: Arrive at camp & eat lunch

• 2 pm: Acclimation hike

• 6 pm: Dinner

• 9 pm: Sleep

Each hike was about 4-5 hours long—you take a short break every 1-2 hours to drink water & eat food—and they covered a few miles & a couple thousand feet of elevation.

The different vegetation zones were also interesting — we started in a rain forest, moved through an alpine desert, and ended on top of a mountain covered with snow.

But by far the most challenging part about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro is summit night.

We arrived at base camp on day four at around noon. We had already hiked 10+ miles and weren’t sleeping great, so you are definitely a little bit tired, dehydrated, and hungry at this point.

But combining that with the altitude is really what makes it difficult.

For example, the camp that we stayed at before the summit (Kibo Hut) was at 15,331 feet of elevation — that’s higher than any point in the continental United States.

So to limit the amount of time that you spend at high elevation, you bundle up, strap on your headlamp, and set out to attempt a summit climb around midnight.

The next eight to nine hours aren’t much fun—we hiked at a steep, steep incline over gravel and boulders in 15-degree weather without sleep for hours—but when you get to “The Roof of Africa” just as the sun is rising, it makes the entire trip worth it.

Mount Kilimanjaro is a volcano, so once you get to the top (Gilman’s point for us), you still have another two hours of hiking around the rim to reach the actual summit.

And this is the view from the tallest point on Mount Kilimanjaro (19,341 ft) — you’re way above the clouds and looking inward toward the crater of the volcano.

And since my brothers wouldn’t believe me without a picture, here’s me at the top!

This trip was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so a massive thank you to everyone that donated, followed along, sent training tips, or spread the word.

One of the things I kept thinking about while in Tanzania was just how important travel is. We haven’t had the ability to travel much over the last few years due to COVID-19, but this journey was a great reminder that there is often no better way to learn about the world than to simply immerse yourself in another person’s culture.

Remember, you can learn something from anyone you meet.

I hope that these pictures provided a good visual representation of what the trip was like, but if you want to hear more details about the experience, make sure to check out today’s 30-minute solo podcast episode where I break it all down.

I hope everyone has a great weekend, and we’ll talk on Monday.

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