49. A Trip to Parliament

31 May Friday was my little sister's 12th birthday!!!! OMG When did that happen? The day she was born, that crazy day when my parents, brother and I got on an airplane to fly to California since she decided to come a few weeks early. Classic Lucie. 

This day was also our field trip day for our Politics and Economics perspectives class, so we went to a couple women's rights and gender equality NGOs in the morning (the prof for this class is the one who is also on the Commission for Gender Equality for South Africa). We went to the Women's Legal Center which is an NGO that provides free service to women for gender rights abuse cases that they think might set new precedents. It was cool. Women's Legal Center 

Then we went to an NGO that fights for women's rights and fights against gender-based violence by targeting men and boys. What a brilliant strategy! Sonke Gender Justice 

Then, we went to Parliament and had a tour of that. We got showed around all the different buildings of the complex. We got to go into all the chambers and we caught the tail end of a session on housing legislation. It was actually really cool to see the RSA's parliament in operation. And then we went to the old legislation chamber where all the apartheid laws were signed into being. It was horrifying being in there and seeing the chairs where the legislators of one of the greatest long-term human rights abuses in history sat and signed these laws into being. 

After our tour ended, we went out to lunch at a sandwich shop in Cape Town because why not. Also, I suffered some minor PTSD when we walked past the Eastern Food Bazaar, the fateful place where the man snatched my purse. And of course, we walked past it...not once, but twice! Just for me.