evidence: Like many other countries, Kenya is an agglomeration of different territories cobbled together through a series of historical accidents and the expansionist fantasies of men with guns. The vast majority of Kenyans live in the south alongside the rail line that connects Mombasa on the coast and Kisumu on Nam Lolwe (Lake Victoria). But a vast swath of Kenya is distributed across only five out of the 47 counties — Turkana, Marsabit, Mandera, Wajir and Garissa — in the country’s north and east. The British colonial government was so intimidated by the ingenuity and grit it took to survive these territories that its administration never took hold here. The region was administered separately from the rest of the country, handily labelled "the Northern Frontier District". It was here that political prisoners demanding independence served their sentences and unlucky colonisers were sent as punishment. Even today, so removed are they from the construct of the nation that when you visit from the south you are routinely greeted by the question "how is Kenya?"