She became friendly with Kibii, a boy of the tribe. Beryl's father trained them both to ride horses like cavalry cadets, while Kiibi's father trained them to hunt and track. Because of her unique status in the tribe, Beryl was allowed to train as an equal in games of skill with the boys. One of these games was to jump as high as one's own height. When Beryl reached her full height, she was nearly six feet tall.
Errol Trzebinski, in The Lives of Beryl Markham, wrote "All Beryl cared about was competing with Kibii. She could hurl a spear just as well as Kibii, with deadly accuracy. She had learned to straighten her arm in a backward arabesque, as if to hurl a javelin, sending out a thrust to impale. The grace, the strength of her backward stretched arm manifested all the simplicity and ease of a cave painting. Africa is many things to many people of many races, but a child nurtured on its red inhospitable soil carries those lessons forever."
In a few years, when the farm was settled and a western-style house had been built, Beryl's father brought in tutors for her formal education. During World War I, she was sent away to a proper English school in Nairobi, but she felt out of place there.
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