July 28, 2005 - What’s going ON over there, anyway? Got me. Lots of stuff. You can always check the World Congress Program on our website to get the general idea. There is apparently a daily schedule printed each night,but I can’t seem to get anyone to send it. Ah well, I hear there’s a lot of ebb and flow. And 3000 personal stories. Here’s some , Melinda A note from Sulfiati,our main Photo-sender on the 27th “…we perservere (sending photos) because we are hearing such appreciation from all of you. Tomorrow is Festival Day with a big parade. Sjarif is going to try to get lots of photos. I will be in choir practice during the day. We attended a meeting today about the YES Quest, and then the people from Seven Circles met with the people from Quest for lunch. We are happy to announce that there will be YES Quest at Seven Circles next summer, in July. We will have one and maybe two sessions, especially targeted to youth from Zone 7 (US, Canada, South America). A young man from Columbia who has done lots of youth organizing was really glad to hear about it - think we will have a few from South America for sure. Tonight Reynard Rott gave a wonderful concert in a large gazebo in the park. Phenomenal performance. Several standing ovations and when he stopped we still wanted more. Which we will get on Friday night when he plays with the symphony......The Seven Circles of Life Cantata by Lucas Richman. After that we went towards the main congress hall. The security guards (our own youth, grown up and in spiffy jackets and security badges....including my son Sofan--I didn't know him!) were clearing people from the front steps so that the Indonesian Ambassador to Austria and also Ibu Rahayu's party could come through. He gave a rather long speech to us, ending with the suggestion that Subud help the religions of the world pull together and stop fighting. And then, as a gift to us, the Embassy presented a program of Indonesian dancing on the stage. So, tomorrow we have another very full day......the orchestra and choir is practicing for the concert on Friday night, congress Quest is still going on, latihan is at eleven, the educators are having a conference, there is a children's parade with the beautiful wings that Sharifa has been creating, there are two sections on peace processes, more cafe concerts, Congress TV at 7:00 p.m., a fascinating project called "Infusing Humanitarian Actions with Humour".......and at 7:00 p.m. a program called "Journey to Middle Earth" with Hammond Peek who was the sound man for the Lord of the Rings movies. Reading all of this doesn't it seem as though Subud might be getting somewhere? I do think so. Much love to all, Sulfiati Haris,in Innsbruck ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ July 27,2005 Translated from Spanish…edited for privacy,so we can post this. But it has to be anonymous for a number of reasons ================================================= From a member in Innsbruck Saturday July 23. Hello dear sister: Hugs and kisses from Innsbruck. Just got here and was able to get to a computer to send you a few words. As you know getting permission to leave my country was a nightmare, there were times when I thought of giving up, since it seemed impossible to obtain all the paperwork. But luckily a friend lent me some money to bribe the proper authorities, since this was my first time, I didn't realize that I had to do that in order to get the permits I needed. So finally we are here, penniless of course, all four of us...but "God will provide". The group latihans are wonderful, I had never experience anything like this. The food so far was inedible for us, since we are not used to "hot" foods, so we were able to just take an apple and eat it in our rooms. Prices here are out of this world for us: A Pizza is 6 Euros, which is what I earn as a doctor in 2 weeks salary in my country, and even a coke is almost 2 Euros. Oh well, I need to loose weight anyway... :-) The weather is very pleasant, we have not needed coats so far. will write more tonight. ---------------------- July 24 Ah, today we were able to eat the food. For lunch we had lasagna and for dinner a turkey with cheese sauce. It is different but we enjoyed it. Everything is so expensive here, and the people very strict in the way they act. A little unfriendly by our standards, but we are in their country, so we have to adapt. I would not like to live here, I am used to people laughing and being friendly, but the country is truly beautiful, so clean and so many flowers. ============================ HA HA, you asked me why I think they are "strict' here, so I'll give you a few examples of things that are strange for us: We are not allowed to take a shower after 11 p.m. We feel like little children the way they are telling us to "follow the rules". Sometimes we are not hungry at breakfast, and we noticed that there is lots of food that they actually throw away (which is something you would never see in my country.) So we thought that we would take the bread, cheese and ham that they give us for breakfast and put it in our purse to eat later in the day. A lady came over and told us ( in a piece of paper in German and English which someone had to translate for us) that they would rather throw away the food than allow anyone to take it from the dining room. Another item: we were on this long line to get into the Congress's restaurant last night. Had been in line for a long time. As we were about to enter the restaurant, Lily and I decided to put our purses down on a table so that we could join the rest of our group. When we walked back to the line, a lady insisted that we go to the back of the line. Laura, who understood what had happened, tried to explain to the lady that we had already been in line for a long time and that she had saved our place while we put our purses down so we could carry the tray. No matter how much Laura explained the lady kept on signaling to us to go to the end of the line. So we did, but we sure would have loved to punch her in the teeth... however, we realized that our chances of ever becoming International helpers would have evaporated together with the lady's teeth, so we meekly went to the end of the line, which by then had gotten twice as big. ------------------------------------------------ Tonight finally Meldan and M. were told that our contingent did not have food coupons and had been having to borrow from people in order to eat. So someone came and brought us the food tickets.... we were getting a bit worried. As you know we came without any money and are not sure how to pay back the people that have helped us. Lily and I decided to go for a little walk into town, we wanted an opportunity to see the country. We tried to get our Kedjiwaan Councilors, A. and C. to come along with us, but they felt that there were forces or ghosts or something that could "get us" if we left the congress site. So, since we are young and less spiritual, we decided to go for a walk and really enjoyed it. Beautiful town!! ------------------------------------------------------------ Monday morning, July 25th Last night I went for a little walk with a couple of friends, he is from Chile and she is from Holland. They bought me a beer!!! You know the Subud group in our country really frowns upon any alcohol, but people here are really relaxed about it... and how could I say no to a chance to taste German Beer? I like it!!! Anon.(sorry) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ORDER YESTERDAY –TODAY - NOW! A HOT music cd from zone 7 to be a fundraiser! http://subudusa.org/documents/CubaCDFlyer.doc ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ And from an Australian sister: July 27,I think Gruß gott! Yesterday we had our working parties - five main groups tackling, helper work (lucie bohm & hadrian fraval), strengthening the organization (raina mckeknie), nurturing members activities (oliver haitzmann), finance (osanna vaughn) and how to be present in theworld (hamid da silva). These larger groups split up into smaller working parties and we come together over 3 days to work on our areas and bring suggestions, etc. Together at the end. So far it's fairly smooth though of course a bunch of subud people in one room takes a long time to create order. Our small group (understanding organization) was very organized and we actually had a meeting in which everyone spoke and everyone was listened to - an interesting experience!). These reports should come out later and there was some interesting brainstorming around achievable outcomes for the WSA. The general feeling seems to be that despite daniel's calls for major organizational change it is not the structure that needs changing so much as how we are within it. So there are some interesting debates afoot. There is a helper desk in the foyer so people can ask for services - all very coordinated with large notice boards for all the wings. SIHA celebrated its recognition as wing yesterday apparently with champagne. Practitioners provide treatments in another venue and there are hundreds of discover yourself workshops as well as all forms of culture. Truly buzzing. There are constant announcements from the main desk to keep people informed. Despite the fact that this is Austria though, most announcements are in english. Phew. Congress food is. Well we all know what congress food is like.... There have apparently been a few openings though I haven't been privy and the new member/helper/committee book has been selling well. Ibu is to test with us tonight so that should be full house. Tomorrow I go on a hike and a visit to a castle - felt we'd better do that at least once seeing as we're here. RE: 26th Apparently there is a video available(of Rahayu’s talk) but i haven't checked.I will try and find out for you. For me it seemed she was really emphasizing the need for us to understand for ourselves and to find answers ourselves but i'll have to get back to you for more. The testing was powerful and great and everyone got what they needed out of it in the most unexpected ways. There was a huge line of people outside the hall waiting for each session but they were marathon at 1 hour per sesssion (under/over 10 years), four hours all together. What stamina for her. I think she's doing another session next week and one more talk. There are some really good discussions going on about the future of subud and the needs of the ISC, WSA and so on. I wasn't part of that today as finally got away from the intensity of congress to go on an alpine hike. Stunning snowy peaks and rushing streams. The good thing is there does not appear to be too much gossip though there is definitely tension between the cot, different delegates and daniel's manner of suddenly changing the agenda More later sweets Love Savana from Australia