Welcome to the fifth episode in our ongoing “COVID-19 in Myanmar” series, called “Sheltering in Place.” While the previous show told the stories of four expats who left just before the world closed down, the current episode relates the tales of four more expats who were in Myanmar at the time that the pandemic hit, and made the decision to remain in the country and ride out the storm in the Golden Land. The guests include:

·     Hampus Haraldsson, a Swedish yogi who had planned a series of meditation courses, self-retreats, travel and Buddhist study in Myanmar this year. He was taking a metta course at Chan Myay Myaing Monastery in Pyin Oo Lwin when the pandemic hit.

·     Marc Shortt, the founder of Sa Ba Street Food Tours, and who led a fundraising effort to buy food from local vendors and offer it to under-served communities in downtown Yangon and in Hledan.

·     Jochen Meissner is an Austrian meditator in the Sayagyi U Ba Khin tradition and the founder of Uncharted Horizons, which runs trekking and biking expeditions in Dalla and Chin State. He talks about life in Yangon under shutdown.

·     Matthew Schojan is an American practitioner who is the founder of Wandering Meditators and leads regular group sittings at the Alliance Francaise in Yangon. An expert in the field of mental health, he talks about the impact he is seeing now seeing due to the pandemic.

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