TURKANALAND LIES JUST north of the equator in northwest Kenya, with Ethiopia, the Sudan, and Uganda on its borders to the north and west. Almost the size of the Republic of Ireland, and representing twelve per cent of Kenya's land mass, it is divided into the administrative districts of Lodwar and Lokitaung. Both districts are wholly within the Great Rift Valley, the world's most formidable geological fault, a great scar that runs north-south for 2000 miles through eastern and central Africa. Here, amid the punishing heat and rocky terrain of one of the harshest regions of Africa, landscape is on a grand scale.