I had to look up "polyethylene" for this post

The New Times, Rwanda's highly respected and only (*cough*) English language daily, reports that one can incur up to five years of imprisonment if caught with polyethylene bags (read: regular plastic bags). Now I don't think anyone has ever seriously gone to jail for this, although they might get fined (up to five million RwF = $9,000. Most Rwandans would rather spend their life in prison then try to come up with that sum).

But let's just take this law at face value for a second.

In Rwanda, if you (intentionally) killed somebody during the genocide and have confessed to this, you are sentenced to 20 - 25 years of prison. The catch: you actually spend only 1/3 rd of the sentence in Prison (7 years), 1/2 doing community service 3 days a week (and if full-time then only a quarter so only 5 years). The rest is on parole. So that's 7 years of jail, 5 years of community service for killing someone.

Think about it. Killing someone = prison sentence for owning a plastic bag + 2 years.

Conclusion: Rwanda cares about the environment just as much as it cares about ... Reconciliation?(I am being cynical, and if you don't get it I’ll explain this to you over drinks sometime once I'm out of here).

I’m serious about the plastic bags. They don’t check you for weapons or drugs when you enter from Uganda. You can imagine my disbelief, being used to Ben Gurion airport and all… (What? No strip-search??!). But they do check you for plastic bags and make you leave them on the Ugandan side of the border.