On January 8, 1998—my birthday, as it happens—I greeted 24 tired and slightly scared undergraduates from the United States as they got off their British Airways flight from London and stood in line awaiting immigration and customs clearance at the airport in Harare. I had taken a semester off from my job as professor of mathematics at Colorado College to direct the ACM (Associated Colleges of the Midwest) Program in Zimbabwe and had no more idea what our joint experience in Zimbabwe would bring than they did. I too was nervous with anticipation.