Nick Wadhams

Humvee Update: Getting a little closer

From another tipster chum, we learn that Nairobi's increasingly famous banana yellow Humvee is owned and operated by someone named Charles, said to be "one of the main IT people at the UN." Here's hoping that Charles will submit to an interview (all in the spirit of good fun, of course -- this isn't Darfur or anything).

PS: I was driving on James Gichuru Road the other day, climbing the hill as it approaches Wayaki Way, and what should I see hurtling in the opposite direction? You guessed it, the B.Y.H! I caught only the briefest of glimpses of the driver (was that you, Charles?), and considered turning around and following him. But there were two other passengers in our car, one of whom happened to be an eight-month-old baby who was angry about being 45 minutes late for a one-year birthday party. Next time, Charles! Next time!

PPS: In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that we drive a 1989 Mitsubishi Pajero, which, to be honest, probably gets worse gas mileage than Charles' Humvee. At the moment, there is a problem with the injector pump and it spews a lot of black smoke. Working on it!

Found in Westlands

Official siting in Westlands, Saturday night at about 2 a.m. I have obscured the plate... for now. Thanks, tipster chums!

Is it any surprise that Saturday's Nation newspaper contained this item: "The United Nations office in Nairobi may have lost Sh10 billion in procurement and administrative scandals over the past three years, an internal audit report has revealed."

Sadly, this kind of thing was a common story when I covered the U.N. Maybe all that money is going to banana yellow Humvees.

Humvee Alert

Spotted this afternoon near the Nairobi arboretum: A yellow Humvee resembling the one above (possibly an H1, not an H2 or an H3... this was a real military-grade Hummer). The kicker: It had U.N. plates.

Now, that's interesting. U.N. staffers' love of expensive cars has been well and hilarously documented, but this struck me as insane. You're working for an organization at least part of whose purpose is to do a little good in the world, and you're getting paid pretty well. Potential ethical quandaries there, but fine, leave that for another day. There is, however, a real short-circuit when you're buying not even a Mercedes, not even a big old Toyota Landcruiser, but a full-blown Hummer, and it's banana yellow. I've got nothing against yellow Hummers per se, but a U.N. staffer with a yellow Hummer seems, I don't know, a little in your face.

Oh, to have gotten a picture. To have gotten a picture! How about it: Does anyone out there know the U.N. employee who had the cojones big enough to buy, import and drive a banana-yellow, military-styel Humvee in Nairobi? It's as if the fellow pinched it from a nearby peacekeeping mission, slapped on a new coat of paint (Yellow! No one will recognize it) and went down to the DMV to get his new registration.