of Niger, the poorest and driest country on earth. Since 2007, 252 wells, a school, and a dispensary hospital have been created across an area the size of Germany. Together, these facilities help the Sahara's nomadic people survive and prosper (the ultimate goal is 400 wells). Funding has come from the U.S. Congress — through the US African Development Foundation, an arm of the U.S. Congress and USAID — and from a devoted conglomerate of French philanthropists and wine producers. In 2014, Tidene/USA was absorbed into a larger organization, Les Puits du Desert/Tidene. When asked in a newspaper interview about his beliefs on God, Webster responded: "I don't know. I don't know if there is a God. There's something. There's obviously a rhythm to the universe. But if there is a God, it has to be a man, because a female God wouldn't have screwed up the world this much." He wrote "Traveling the Long Road to Freedom, One Step at a Time," which was published in Smithsonian magazine; this article was recently used in the English language and literature pre-release material (AQA). In 2006 and 2007, he was co-leader of the expedition Running the Sahara, an on-foot crossing of North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean beach in Senegal to the beach at the Suez in Egypt. The expedition was filmed and edited into a documentary film, Running the Sahara, narrated by Matt Damon and released in 2007 with the logistics support of Sam Rutherford at prepare2go.com. The project began in Senegal and went through Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Libya, before culminating in Egypt. Runners included Charlie Engle, Ray Zahab and Kevin Lin. In February 2009, he and his son, James Webster, became graduates of Gruppo Storico Romano, the Roman Coliseum's Gladiator School, as recognized gladiators with the organization's 11th Legion. In July and August 2011, he and photographer Ron Haviv traveled to Madre de Dios Region in southeast Peru for the Amazon Aid Foundation. There they documented the environmental destruction of the upper-Amazon basin rainforest by illegal gold mining, a practice that has increased exponentially due to a recent leap in gold prices. A documentary film team followed their investigation. The result is Amazon Gold, a multi-award-winning theatrical documentary film narrated by Academy Award winners Sissy Spacek and Herbie Hancock. Criminal conviction On August 14, 2014, Webster was charged with driving under the influence after he set into motion