CHESHIRE, Conn. (AP) – A Cheshire man volunteering with the Peace Corps in west Africa has died after he was electrocuted in a boating accident there.

Matthew Costa, 24, a 1999 graduate of Cheshire High School, was killed Sept. 3 while sailing on the Niger River in the nation of Mali, his family and Peace Corps officials said this week.

Costa planned to return to the United States in January to test for admission to law school. Costa and a fellow volunteer died when the mast on their homemade sailboat struck a high-tension wire and they were electrocuted, The New Haven Register reported. The Peace Corps’ Web site identifies the other victim as Justin Brady, 27, of Philomath, Ore.

Costa served in Chad from 2003 to 2005 as an English teacher, then extended his volunteer stint to work on economic development projects in the village of Kati, located in Mali’s Koulikoro region.

The agency’s Web site says Costa also trained 15 men in pump maintenance, educated youth about AIDS prevention, played on the community soccer team and distributed donated sporting equipment to area residents.

“The deaths of Justin Brady and Matthew Costa are a tragic loss to everyone who knew these two outstanding volunteers,” Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez said in a statement on the site. “Both of these men left legacies in their host communities, and in the Peace Corps, that will not be forgotten.”

Costa’s mother, Pamela Cameron of Farmington, said her son became fascinated with global affairs after he spent the summer before his eighth-grade year in Great Britain as a participant in a student ambassador program.

“I think it was at that point that it became apparent to me that the little community of Cheshire wasnt going to be enough for him,” Cameron said.

Costa joined the Peace Corps after graduating in 2003 from Tulane University in New Orleans.

“He was so gentle and sweet,” Cameron said. “He knew the world was so much bigger than where he came from.”

Funeral services are scheduled Sunday in Hartford.

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On the Web: www.peacecorps.gov

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Information from: New Haven Register, http://www.ctcentral.com

AP-ES-09-09-06 1225EDT