Hope is Round and Leather: Football Unifies a Strife-Torn Haiti

In lieu of an abstract, below is the first paragraph of the paper. In strife-torn Caribbean nations such as Haiti, hope is hard to come by. Poverty and political conflicts throughout its history too often overshadow the islands\u27 stunning beauty and color. In these warm-climate islands that cry out for structure, only sport responds. In the Caribbean, the calendar year isn\u27t split by the season\u27s winter, spring, fall and summer, but into cricket season and football season (Hislop qtd. in Ferguson vii). Football, the proper and logical term for what America calls soccer, provides an opportunity that is often sought for, but rarely found. While cricket plays its part in the Caribbean, football as a unifying force is a commonality shared all over the world, capable of helping the most troubled areas. In this group of Caribbean nations that is divided no more geography than by political-strife and poverty, football provides hope, unifies the people and nations, and offers cultural pride as shown through Haiti as a lens