January 20. 2010
ílll|Jnrtkuib (jDbseruer
L ocal N ews
Page 3
Disaster Hits Home
page 3-5
Local residents have loved ones in Haiti
H ealth
page 6-7
O pinion
page 8-9
C lassifieds
page 15
G eneral N ews
I
page 17-18
page 2«
25th MLK Celebration
The 25th anniversary of the Martin
Luther King Jr. World Arts Founda
tion of Portland celebration Monday
recognized 25 Oregonians for their
community activism. The MLK holi
day event at the Highland Christian
Center also featured children's choirs,
gospel music, interpretive dance,
blues, and jazz.
Jones on National Team
Jefferson High School’s Terrence
Jones has been selected to the USA
Junior National Select Team and will
take part in the annual Nike Hoop
Summit on April 10 at the Rose G ar
den, USA Basketball announced
“W e’ve not had good news to
day,” says Ben Ferere, in his thick
Hatian accent, which has a tinge of
Belgian from his days serving in the
country’s military.
He found out that his 6-year-old
nephew died in the earthquake. His
cousin, Sabrina, was presumed to be
buried under a pile of rubble, until
rescuers heard her calls and spent the
entire night digging through it before
pulling her to safety.
For years, the Ferere’s have kept a
colorful mapof Haiti in the shop they’ve
owned since 1990. Nowadays, adona-
tion jar for the Caribbean and Haitian
American Organization of Texas, a
non-profit founded by his brother,
can be found next to the map, just an
arm’s reach away from the coffee and
sugar for customers’ coffee.
A steady stream of customers, wet
from the rain outside, trickle into pur
chase bagels, cups of coffee, and
stuff dollars into the jar. Several know
the couple, and warmly shake hands
while expressing regards.
“The community is definitely re
sponding,” says Jackie Ferere, who
has counted $915 in donations in just
two days.
But despite the outpouring of sup
port, the outlook for Haiti is bleak,
says Ben Ferere.
The country, which became the
phot » by J ake T homas /T he P ortland O bserver
first republic ruled by people of Afri
Haiti native Ben Ferere, co-owner o f the Begat Land shop on
can
ancestry when it gained inde
Northeast Fremont Street, mourns the loss o f extended family
pendence from France in 1803, is one
members killed is Haiti's 7.0 magnitude earthquake. He still
awaits word from other family members in Haiti.
of the poorest places in the hemi
sphere and struggles with chronic
by J ake T homas
Land, a northeast Portland shop he food insecurity.
T he P ortland O bserver
owns with his wife Jackie Ferere,
Ben Ferere said that the country
Ben Ferere hits the green button winds down.
was just beginning to recover so
on his wireless phone after conclud
The last few days have been tense cially and economically from the strife
ing a conversation with a relative in for the couple. Since the disaster, that marked the presidency of Jean-
Port-au-Prince, the epicenter of de Ferere has steadily gotten updates Betrand Aristide, who was over
struction from last week’s 7.0magni from friends and relatives in Haiti, the thrown in 2004, and the brutal hurri
tude earthquake in Haiti.
place where Ben was raised and met canes that shook Haiti in 2008.
Ferere stands cross-armed and Portland native Jackie while she was
Now he has no idea how a coun-
tense with the phone firmly in his grip a Peace Corp volunteer in the late
continued
on page 4
while the day’s business at Bagel 1980s.
M onday.
SWAT Training
Blasted
Week in
The Review
A
S o u th w est
W ashington R e
gional swat team training for a “school
, h
, ................... began to pump
shooting” stirred controversy Mon
day at the Vancouver campus of
Washington State University. Some
students and professors said con
ducting the exercise on the Martin
Luther King Jr. holiday undercut
King’s message of peace and social
change.
Man Dies in Cistern
A southw est Portland man was
found dead after ap
parently falling into a
35-foot sink hole in
his back yard S un
day. It w asn’t until
em ergency
g
y w orkers
,
water from
the hole, believed to be an
old cistern, that they dis
c o v e re d th e b o d y o f
M ichael Zerwas, 57.
Hotel Fall Kills Man
A 20-year-old Yakima man
died from injuries he sus
tained after falling out o f a
fourth-floor window early
Tuesday at the Inn at the
Convention Center hotel at 420 N.E.
H o lla d a y . P o rtla n d P o lic e r e
sponded to the call around 3 a.m.
Education Funding Wanted
P r e s id e n t
B a ra c k O b a m a a n
nounced T u es
d ay h e 'll ask
C o n g re s s fo r
$1.35 billion to
extend an ed u
cation grant pro
gram for states,
saying that get
tin g
s c h o o ls
right "will shape
our future as a
nation."