/lit/ - Literature

>>14953234
>Did you start this program in West Africa just because you were stationed there with the Peace Corps?
Yes.

> And if so, did you plan it in advance, or did it arise surreptitiously while you were there?
It was entirely serendipitous. I spent the first six months futilely trying to start a working library along with the mostly useless staff of the school in my village. (Every education tries to built a library. They make for good photos, even if they fall apart within a few months.) I'd brought a chessboard along in a very casual way, like, "Okay, I guess I'll have a lot of free time what with no TV or Internet, so I may as well bring something to amuse myself." I showed one of my host siblings how to play and it snowballed from there, to the point where I couldn't walk through town without people flagging me down and demanding to borrow my set. I wrote a grant to buy a shitload of cheap-but-durable supplies. I barely knew how to play when I arrived; for a year or so all I thought about was chess. With the help of other volunteers we managed to organize and supply clubs in 50 villages, and organize the country's first ever youth tournament.

>Lastly, what stops you from going back given how important it seems to you?
I'm afraid of making the horrible mistake of trying to perform necromancy on something that's over and done with. Also, it was extremely unpleasant to live there; the people (the adult men, anyway) were almost inhumanly appetitive and incapable of reflection or self-awareness, and of course there are all the other discomforts of barely functional infrastructure, malnutrition, disease, etc. The only thing that made it bearable was the intense effort I put into my projects. Without that, living there would just be self-abuse. It just doesn't seem right. The past is over. It's finished. What I really miss is that intense and clear-cut sense of meaning to every day. Crazy to think that perhaps none of it would have happened if I hadn't packed that chess set. My greatest fear at this point is that that will have been the only moment in my life that meant something or felt genuinely remarkable.