Feb. 21: There’s a recent wave of news from Joe while on his study abroad program in Sri Lanka.  He called me early last week, and we had a great 15 minute chat.  Sounds like he’s doing really well.  It was fun to hear his voice and to hear him relate some stories.  He got to hear Sylvia screech at him from across the world.  She wanted to hold the phone.
Joe has several blog posts that I have copies below.  See the originals here.  He’s planning to reply to comments, so if you’d like to leave him a little howdy-do note, you can do so here.
Joe just completed the first session of the program, and the ISLE program website has been updated with lots of nice pictures of the students and descriptions of their activities.  There’s also another page of pictures for those who just can’t get enough.
Also, for those of you who aren’t up on your world events (I’m raising my hand here, I only get my news on my 8 minute drive to Curves in the morning), there’s been some intense changes to Sri Lanka’s civil war.  The Tamil Tigers have been fighting the Sri Lankan government since the 1970s.  Fighting has escalated since 2005, and in the last week, the Sri Lankan government announced that they captured some important territories in the Tamil Tiger area.  The fighting…and there’s lots of it…has been limited to the northern edge of the island – about 150 miles from where Joe is staying in Kandy.  The BBC has some good info on this conflict if you’d like to learn more.