On a recent school day morning, Florence Marembo was all dressed up with nowhere to study: The 12-year-old instead played with a dozen other students on the grounds of her school in a suburb of Zimbabwe's capital. Her teachers at Gwinyiro Primary School said they wouldn't work until the government pays them in foreign currency because they can't even afford the bus fare amid the country's economic meltdown. [...] The swift decline of an education system that once was the pride of the region has matched the general unraveling of Zimbabwe's economy and infrastructure as President Robert Mugabe clings to the power he has held for 28 years. Aid groups warn the closures also mean that hundreds of thousands of children will go hungry unless the schools open because it's the only place many children can get a proper meal. [...] The U.N. World Food Program has increased its estimate of the number of Zimbabweans in need of emergency food aid from 5 million to 7 million. Zimbabwe's population was set at 12 million in a 2002 census, but more than a quarter of the population has fled the country's political and economic crisis since then.
