ディサシさんからの手紙 (2023.5.4)

Dear Fukuyama-Sensei,

I would like to apologize for being absent for a while on the internet.

I hope this email finds you in good shape, with your family; and that our long-time benefactors are doing well too. I also hope that you had a peaceful and restful Golden Week.

I think of you very often, I tell myself to call you more often, but first I have to manage to write to you regularly. I give thanks to the Eternal God who allowed us to meet and I hope to visit you this year, especially as a sign of gratitude. My days are so busy that time seems to pass very quickly. In Mbujimayi, soon it will be the dry season while in Kumamoto, it will be rather the big rainy season.

My activities have grown, and require me more time to devote to them.

As you know, after my studies in Japan, back home, I worked for about two years at the University of Kinshasa before coming to settle in Mbujimayi.

The University of Mbujimayi has progressed in the ranking of universities in Congo, and currently the University of Mbujimayi is ranked 4th among the top 20 universities in the DRC. A few years ago, we were 20th. The Government has also decided to support the University of Mbujimayi in the same way as it supports state universities. The University of Mbujimayi was initially a private university, and I have continued to serve as rector for 12 years already.

On the occasion of my next visit to Japan, we can try to revive the collaboration with the University of Kumamoto.

In the two hospital structures that we have established in Mbujimayi thanks to your support, at the Megumi medical center and at the Valentin Disashi hospital, the ambition is always to improve the quality of health care. Our attention was continually solicited by patients with severe renal failure who did not have access to dialysis. More than 20 years ago, Dr. Hayano gave me a video describing the peritoneal dialysis procedure. She wanted me to assist the patients by applying the procedure of peritoneal dialysis. However, locally there was no production of solutions to perform peritoneal dialysis. Currently on the Kinshasa market, we can get a water purification system, which therefore gives pure water that can be used in hemodialysis. We are therefore trying to install a hemodialysis unit.

It must be said that this will be the first hemodialysis unit in Mbujimayi, a city of more than two million inhabitants. It is thanks to the work that we have begun with all of you to support the health of our compatriots, that this achievement is on the horizon. I express my gratitude to you.

This is to tell you that it is close to my heart to come and visit you this year. We will see together how to plan this trip, at the right time for all of us.

For the financial support you give us voluntarily, as we always need the good quality of Japanese medical equipment, we can still source equipment from Japan. We can target consumables like ECG paper or Spotchem Analyzer lab reagents that we took from Dojin. ECG paper is less demanding for transport to the DRC, compared to reagent transport requirements.

Please convey my best regards to  your husband, to your family, to our team of benefactors without forgetting Ms Kamizono, Dr Hayano, and Dr Hashiguchi.

Appreciatively yours,

Disashi