Ivan Alba teaching math in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a very hard country to live in.  The average yearly wage in the country is only about $500US per year.  From 2006 to 2009, the Zimbabwean dollar devaluated at such an alarming rate that one US dollar (worth one Zimbabwean dollar in 2006) was worth 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (thirty octillion) Zimbabwean dollar by 2009. The national currency became absolutely worthless, and everyone with money in the bank lost it.  Today’s circumstances are bleak in President Mugabe’s Zimbabwe; yet Rotary, and a sense of hope, still survives.
 
The Alba Family (Ivan, Elena, Isabel and Lily) met with a Zim Rotarian named Tina “Tete Chikisa” Chirwe who runs a school in Chipinge. She has the true heart of a ‘Rotarian on fire’.  After touring much of the country by bus, the family ended up working with the St. Albertina School to help them improve their mathematics education program.  Isabel and Lily attended the school and learned, first hand, what it was to be an African student, and Elena and Ivan got straight to work with the teachers and the principal.  The Rotarian-run school boards many students from the outskirts of the community and Tina, herself, pays for those students who have difficulty paying the modest tuition to attend.  The Rotarians in the community are constantly searching for ways to help those who are in greatest need.  Zimbabwe has many who need this help.
 
School Children in Chipinge, Zimbabwe
While the Albas have found many ways to help Rotary projects financially, their “Gift to the World” is their craft as educators.  Elena trains teachers in teaching English and Mathematics, and Ivan (being an international math consultant) trains principals and teachers how to teach everyone to “Make Sense of Math” in innovative ways.  Catch their blog as they travel throughout the world until the end of June by clicking www.albaworldtour.wordpress.com the next time you are on the computer.  They have found that Rotary is everywhere that people need it.  No matter how rich or poor, you will always find a smiling Rotarian willing to help change the world in amazing ways.