It is with a deep sense of loss and sorrow that we learnt of the passing of our dear beloved Mother Frieda Ueripura Kauta, who departed from this world in the early evening of 14 January 2024. Even death itself cannot claim victory. It is shamed because it does not have the power to erase from memory, the dedication, the commitment, the willingness to sacrifice and strength of the human spirit which Mama Frieda  represented. Mama Frieda was a humble servant of the people and will be remembered for her selfless dedication to the upliftment of the communities she served. We bid farewell to a mother who understood only too well the great responsibility that family relations had thrust upon her. We bid farewell to a person who was much loved, respected and admired. We bid farewell with a heavy heart, for we realise that one of the best among us has departed. We have lost a person who embodied so much of that to which we all aspire.

Mama Frieda was born on 08 January 1948 in Okaepe village, Okakarara constituency and she never lost respect for the pedigree that her upbringing conferred on her as an intellectual born of a humble working-class family. She attended the Ongongombonde Primary School on the outskirts of Okakarara and amongst her schoolmates were Theresa Riitonda Mbaha Hei (my biological mother), Dauro Tjoutuku, Barnabas Jakamuina Kaura and many others. Thereafter she went to attend her secondary school at Augustineum Secondary School in Windhoek where she distinguished herself as a top student. There she shared space with the likes of Asser Mbai, Gerson Katjimune and would be where she met her dear husband Kauna Keller Kauta.

In the words of the English poet, Thomas Gray, “full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

Mama Frieda always refused to parade her immense intellectual capacity as an assertion of her importance, she upheld and sustained the conviction, selflessly, that she and her views were important only to the extent that they resonated with the sentiments of the children she raised.

Mama Frieda and Tate Kauna had six children in holy matrimony and all of them had the benefit of the lecture room. Mama Frieda made sure her children went to school and finished what they started. Gareth Kauta, the eldest of the siblings, studied Agriculture in the former Orange Free State and is now a fulltime farmer. Her second eldest, Patrick Kauta, is now a revered attorney, who continues to use his legal training as a weapon for fighting injustice. He genetically inherited his mother’s ability to grasp complex matters in a blink of an eye. Pukuu as he is affectionately known is followed by Geoffrey Beau Kauta, a bio-chemist by profession and a trendsetter in his space. 

Beau is followed by Rogers Rocco Kauta a lawyer cum businessman presumably because of the arduous nature of the law practice or maybe because of his deep ambition to do more and be more. Valerie Vaanda Kauta is the first daughter of Mama Frieda, she followed in the gallant footsteps of her brothers and would become the first Chartered Accountant amongst her siblings.  Mama Frieda’s last born, Unotjari Kauta, went on to realise the dream her mother relinquished in order to raise her children, she became a medical doctor and is now on course to specialize in the field of emergency medicine.  

Education is a pre-cursor to success and Mama Frieda is an outstanding representative of that, not only amongst her own children, but many others on which she conferred her hand, Uahoroka Kauta and Maureen Katuvesirauina are such examples and they will tell the story.

Mama Frieda’s contribution extended beyond her own, she was a teacher to many students who have now taken up prominent roles in corporate Namibia. Mama Frieda taught us that to fully appreciate the task that falls on our shoulders is to understand that education does not merely impact the fortunes of the immediate household, but the future of an entire country and its people. 

She would later become an ardent African Stars FC supporter through and through, her contribution to the club will reverberate for many years to come. To some of us, who are now in the leadership of African Stars FC, Mama Frieda has been somewhat of an umbilical cord between the history of our beloved club and its emergence on the continent. 

What all this means is that Mama Frieda was present, as one of our pillars, at all seminal moments in the evolution of African Stars FC and its quest for dominance in domestic football.

I am certain that Mama Frieda’s memory lives on in the hearts and minds of her dear husband, Tate Kauna, their children and the rest of the Kauta and Tjahere family, as much as it does among the countless number of lives that she influenced positively during her time on earth. 

Go well into ancestry Mama Frieda, Queen Mothers don’t die, they multiply.

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

* Salomo Hei is an economist and former footballer.