The death of Bollen Mukela Chataa on 9 September 2026 is a profound loss not only to Makanga village, where he was born and will be laid to rest on Sunday, 18 October 2026, but also to Namibia as a whole. He was a teacher, mentor, scholar, farmer, and respected member of his community. He was born on 4 June 1961 to the late Reuben Chata Chibati, a veteran of the liberation struggle.
His mother, Nsara, is said to be from the legendary Imataa Royal family of the Linyanti Community Court (Khuta). Bollen taught at several schools in the Zambezi region, including Mayuni High School, before joining the University of Namibia as a lecturer. He also engaged in livestock and crop farming, embodying a deep connection to the land and his community. His interests included community service, writing, editing, and storytelling.
I remember Bollen not only for the academic knowledge he imparted to us at Mayuni High School in 1987, but also for how he awakened our political consciousness, instilled a sense of national identity, and showed that, as learners, we could organise peacefully to defend our educational rights.
This is a personal tribute to a teacher whose profound impact on us endured long after we had left his classroom. The plurality in this tribute refers to the Mayuni High School Class of 1987.
The teacher who arrived at
Mayuni
In 1987, I was in Form 2 (the ninth grade) at Mayuni High School. That year, two distinguished teachers joined our school: Eric Ndala and Bollen Chataa, whom we all called Bva Eric and Bva Bollen. Their tertiary qualifications were, in themselves, a source of great pride to us. Bva Bollen was an excellent English teacher, teaching the subject with genuine enthusiasm. In a rural context, his pursuit of tertiary education was especially significant, as it demonstrated that further education was attainable and that one’s circumstances need not limit one’s aspirations.
Both teachers were enthusiastic sportsmen with a strong interest in football.
The nearly weekly football practice sessions gave us opportunities to get to know one another as individuals and to build genuine trust. In retrospect, these informal interactions laid the foundation for the more formal lessons in civic responsibility.
Awakening a political consciousness
After a football practice, Bva Bollen and Bva Eric asked a small group of us to stay at the field, about one or two kilometres east of the school.
They told us to attend our evening study sessions and then meet in a classroom after 21h00. The meetings were highly discreet, and we were told not to discuss them with any other teachers or learners. At the time, we had no idea these meetings would mark our introduction to student politics.
Bva Bollen asked, “Banche, have you heard of Nanso?” We had not. He turned to his colleague: “Eric, tell them.” Ba Eric explained that the Namibia National Students Organisation (Nanso) was a student movement founded in the mid-1980s with several aims. The teachers had been involved while at teacher training college. They explained why Mayuni needed a Nanso branch and how the upcoming SRC elections would let learners represent themselves.
The principle that resonated most was their motto: “United we stand, divided we fall”. From our first meetings, we formed a committee led by Bva Bargrey Mukena as chairperson, Sonnyboy Mwanawina as secretary, and Davis Moya and the late Raphael Silipeni as members. Flora Ziezo-Chilinda was its only woman. Bva Bollen inspired us to organise, take responsibility, and work together.
From small gathering to
organised student voice
Our first meeting drew six or seven learners; the next, ten or twelve. Amid political tensions, we acted cautiously and moved meetings from the school to the bush by the third gathering. Some lasted until 11 p.m. or midnight.
During a late-night discussion, teachers explained the Nanso-Swapo link, though political debate was difficult in the highly militarised environment. In 1987, Bargrey Mukena and Sonnyboy Mwanawina attended a Nanso congress in Dobra, near Windhoek. After their return, the Mayuni branch strengthened, and we mobilised more learners.
Education, national identity and dignity
The 1980s were heavily militarised. In our area, school leavers and learners often joined the South West Africa Territorial Force (SWATF). Bva Bollen offered a different vision. At a meeting, he cautioned against romanticising the apartheid military and stressed education’s importance to personal and national development. He urged us to see ourselves as citizens, not subjects of an apartheid administration, and education as a way to claim our place in society.
These discussions helped us turn our concerns into collective demands, which we pursued through peaceful boycotts as part of broader student activism. We campaigned for an improved curriculum because Mayuni taught Mathematics and Science only in lower grades, forcing students to attend town schools to continue these subjects. We also demanded a school hostel.
We also worried about uniformed soldiers on school grounds.
After hearing that students elsewhere had objected to nearby military installations, we decided our school must remain a school. I remember one Wednesday afternoon when an armored vehicle arrived on our sports field, carrying armed soldiers eager to play football with us. We firmly refused.
The military, once admired as a role model, became a thing of the past. Political awareness, once confined to Caprivi State School, had also reached our small village of Mayuni.
Son of a freedom-struggle veteran
Bva Bollen’s courage had roots in his father, Reuben Chata Chibati, one of the men from then-Eastern Caprivi arrested in a 1968 police crackdown after PLAN fighters arrived.
Taken to Pretoria Central Prison, where Mandela and other liberation figures were held, Chibati was charged under the Terrorism Act. Released in October 1969, he continued underground Swapo work in Caprivi. In 2006, he was officially recognised as a liberation war veteran.
He died aged 103 on 6 March 2021 and was buried in Makanga on 11 March, the village where his son will now be buried. A devout Adventist, traditional leader and adviser, he had a joke for everyone and every situation. The late historian Bennett Kangumu commemorated his life in New Era Newspaper.
I can’t comment on private father-son discussions. What his son shared at Mayuni showed courage and humour, qualities his father was known for too.
The consequences of taking a stand
The boycotts concerned the school administration and School Board. At a meeting with parents from several villages and Caprivi education officials, attendees sought to identify student organisers and teachers who encouraged opposition to the curriculum.
Initially, they called for Ba Bollen and Ba Eric to be dismissed. Asked whether anyone present belonged to Nanso, about 30 to 35 learners raised their hands. Bargrey Mukena and Chrispin Matanyambe explained Nanso’s aims. The call to dismiss the teachers was reiterated; the administration instead demoted them to primary-school teachers, transferring Bva Bollen to Masokotwani and Bva Eric to Batubaja Primary School. To us, this meant they had been removed, a deeply painful moment.
After the transfers, police detained several learners; some were tortured or interrogated. They asked whether Bva Bollen had supplied the school with AK-47s from Swapo’s military wing. He had provided no rifles, only ideas, courage, and dignity. We also chose to leave the local military base’s so-called mobilisation campaigns.
A legacy that outlived the
classroom
Though the teachers had left, their organisation and convictions endured. In 1988, we elected a new branch executive: Cde Felix Mashangu (chairperson), Kushekwa Namakando (secretary), Khanyile Mukena (deputy secretary), and Nkwazi Munembo (ordinary member).
By March 1988, we were determined to secure our teachers’ return. We planned to reinstate Ba Bollen and Ba Eric at Mayuni High School, and walk out if they didn’t.
School management called in the military and police.
More than 21 of us were arrested, taken to Kongola Fort, and, as I recall, tear-gassed and tortured. We were held in Katima Mulilo police cells for about a week, then released.
The following Monday, six or seven of us, including Felix Mashangu and me, Khanyile Mukena, were expelled. We were young people who believed our teachers had been treated unjustly and education should support learners’ development. (What happened to me after my expulsion is a story for another day.)
Our experience at Mayuni was part of broader student activism in Namibia. During the 1988 uprisings, Nanso called for the military’s removal from schools. In a 2022 Caprivi Vision interview, Professor Makala Lilemba described the challenges activists faced in the Zambezi region during the liberation struggle, naming Bollen Chataa and Eric Ndala. His account contextualises our experience at Mayuni.
The scholar, editor and lifelong encourager
Bva Bollen’s education and research extended beyond activism and English teaching throughout his academic career. At Mayuni, he began nearly every English lesson with a brief, humorous story, showing that language was more than an exam subject: it enabled critical thinking, laughter, communication, and self-expression.
Years later, his commitment to writing and editing shaped my academic path when he edited my master’s thesis in management, specialising in social security and policy development, at the University of the Witwatersrand. He told me, “Khanyile, you can go very far in education; don’t stop at the master’s degree.”
God willing, I have yet to meet that challenge. He considered pursuing a PhD but ruled it out because of family responsibilities and age.
His intellectual generosity and dedication to developing others represented scholarship of immeasurable value.
Farewell to a teacher who taught us to stand tall
Bva Bollen taught us English, but more importantly, that dignity and education are inseparable. He showed us how to claim our rights and that leadership means empowering people to speak, organise responsibly, and believe change is possible.
Many he mentored built successful careers and served their communities. We uphold his values: education matters, we’re stronger together, and young people deserve the chance to shape their own paths.
His life merits remembrance not only for his academic roles, but for those he inspired, the questions he urged us to ask, and the courage he instilled. He inherited his father’s quiet courage and passed it on.
Rest in peace, Ba Bollen.
“United We Stand, Divided We Fall.”
*Khanyile Mukena writes in his personal capacity. The account of the events at Mayuni is based on the author’s personal recollection. Details about Reuben Chata Chibati are drawn from Bennett Kangumu’s “Reuben Chata Chibati: A ‘terrorism’ trialist passes on”, New Era.
The post Opinion: Teacher, mentor and nation-builder… A tribute to Bollen Mukela Chataa appeared first on New Era.