I was traveling in the countryside yesterday 20 to 30 minutes down a dirt road into the country. City life far behind. If it weren’t for all the people living here, we might say “into the natural landscape.”

As we’re bumping along, one of my fellow passengers chucks out the milk carton he just finished.  In my most bemused California, Berkeley student way, I asked, “Why’d you do that? You just toss the garbage on the side of the road like that?”

“It’s okay,” they responded. “It’s not a problem.”

“But it’s trash. Why not just hold on to it and we’ll throw it away later?”

“Rwanda is very clean. Very clean for Africa. It’s okay.” There was a clear consensus in the car.

“But this makes it less clean, doesn’t it?”

“No, no. It’s okay. Rwanda is very clean…”

…Honestly, Rwanda is very clean. You don’t see trash and abandoned waste anywhere. Which is why I don’t get it. For how normal they made it seem to chuck your trash out your window, Rwanda should be much dirtier.

Shouldn’t it?