Sayadaw Ashin Ottamasara

To date, there have been no studies on mental illness in Burma. Today, psychiatry and psychotherapy in Myanmar are still in their infancy. The only two psychiatric hospitals in this country of 56 million people refuse any contact with the media. But I was able to stay as a nursing assistant in a unique facility near Rangoon that is open to all mentally ill people excluded from Burmese society, much like the hospices of old in Europe. Seemingly carrying a message of peaceful coexistence in a country torn by ethnic and religious tensions, this center struck me from the outset as enigmatic and mysterious in its operations. (Alain Mazars)