11 Aug Empowered Women Empower the Nation: Sorta Mulhovo’s Journey from Cleaner to Guide
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This August, South Africa marks 70 years since 20,000 women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria, refusing to carry the passes that apartheid demanded of them.
Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn led that march on 9 August 1956, and the women behind them stood in silence for thirty minutes before turning for home. That single day became National Women’s Day. The month around it became Women’s Month. And this year, seven decades on, South Africa’s theme is a simple, sturdy sentence: Empowered Women Empower the Nation.
To mark the occasion, we’re returning to one of our favourites stories of female empowerment: the story of Sorta Mulhovo, a guide at Rhino Post Safari Lodge whose career is, in its own quiet way, exactly what this Women’s Month theme attests to.
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A Leopard, an Impala, and a Very Normal Tuesday
Sorta arrived for her safari guide interview at Rhino Post with two good stories to tell. The first happened just that morning. She was walking the wooden walkways between guest rooms at the lodge, waking up the guests for their game drive, when she found a freshly killed impala lamb lying across the path.
Sorta recalls, laughing at the memory.I thought about moving it but I heard a warning growling... There was a leopard looking me in the eyes from the bush. I heard a voice in my head that said 'don't run,' so I slowly walked back about five metres.
The leopard eventually slunk back into the bush.
I had to make sure everything was okay for the guests. That's part of my job.
It’s the kind of moment that would rattle most people for a week. For Sorta, it was Tuesday.
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The Longer Story
The second story is the one that matters more, and it’s taken Sorta a lot longer to tell.
Sorta didn’t start at Rhino Post as a guide. She started as a cleaner. Then she became a waitress, and in 2018, head waitron. She grew up near the Kruger National Park, in a region where jobs are scarce and the ones that exist rarely stretch far. Getting from cleaning rooms to leading game drives is not a short walk, and Sorta made it on her own terms, quietly enrolling with the Nature College’s online guiding course without telling anyone at the lodge.
Guiding, or taking care of nature, is a family thing. I received great inspiration to do this from my father, who worked for the KNP and later Rhino Post for many years. My father is a legend.
It runs through her whole family. Sorta’s older brother is a sergeant in the Kruger anti-poaching unit. Her younger brother, fresh off a B Tech in nature conservation, guides hiking trails at Metsi Metsi and Mathikithi in the park. Three siblings, each with their own way of protecting the same wild place their father taught them to love.
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Being Seen
Sorta tried to keep her studies to herself, but Nikki Meyer, Seolo Africa’s regional operations manager, noticed anyway.
Nikki saw what I was doing, and when I explained, she said I didn't have to do everything on my own, that the company would help. She said I wouldn't have to pay for the course, and when I told her I already had, she agreed to refund me.
From there, the qualifications stacked up: a public driving licence, first-aid training, snake handling. And behind all of it, a lodge full of people willing to answer her questions.
During my studies, and even today, everyone at the lodge has their hand open for me. My management and the other guides offer their full support. I am looking forward to becoming one of the top nature conservationists.
Her own words sum it up best: “As many people say, life begins at 40. I am starting a new life now.”
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Why We’re Sharing This Story This August
Sorta’s path, through the ranks, back to the classroom, into the bush as a qualified guide, is what economic inclusion and financial independence can look like at ground level. Her story is about a woman who wouldn’t stay in the job she was handed, a director who backed her instead of getting in her way, and a family that has spent three generations choosing to protect the same wilderness that shaped them.
This is the kind of nation the 1956 marchers were fighting for. Seventy years later, Sorta is helping pave the way for likeminded women, one game drive at a time.
Seolo Africa is proud to be Fair Trade Tourism certified, and prouder still of the women on our teams, across Rhino Post, Plains Camp, Chundu Island and Masuwe Lodge, who are writing stories like Sorta’s every day.
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