Baseball in the Time of Cholera

It’s now been two years, six months, and thirteen days since the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The country has experienced all kinds of aftershocks, and there’s still a long way to go if Haiti is to truly build back better. One of the crises since the earthquake has been the outbreak of cholera, which has killed more than 7,000 since it began to spread throughout the country two years ago.

It has long been thought that UN peacekeepers from Nepal were responsible for introducing the cholera. The UN, however, continues to deny responsibility.

A group called RYOT, in conjunction with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, has produced a 28-minute documentary called Baseball in the Time of Cholera, which was publicly released last week, coinciding with a major push by NGOs, human rights organizations, and over 100 members of the US Congress urging the UN to step up efforts to stop the cholera outbreak.

The film, which is embedded below, features a young Haitian boy named Joseph who tells his story, which includes his love for baseball as well as his heartbreak over the loss of his mother, who died of cholera last year.