Life is Short. Live it Well.
Linda Perez always loved reading, especially adventure stories, especially ones set in Africa, and especially ones with unpredictable endings. Attracted to high-risk situations, she assumed her life would not be a long one, so felt the need to cover a lot of ground quickly — before time ran out.
Feeling an irresistible draw to Africa, Linda embarked for newly independent Zambia immediately upon graduating from UT. There she completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Education by the University of London and was posted to a rural school to teach math, sciences, and agriculture, where she was awarded the Kenneth Kaunda Award for Agricultural Achievement.
In Kenya for 5 years, Linda’s work included teaching in a school near the Uganda border, moving to a farm outside Nairobi, working on educational exhibits for the National Museum, and planning a project to study seasonality of reproduction in wildebeest and Maasai cattle.
Several years later, she assisted Alan Walker in his research on diet of early hominids, first at Harvard University and then at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Linda returned to Kenya to spend her summers helping Walker clean hominid fossils found by Richard Leakey and his team.
While in Baltimore, Linda received her MHS at Johns Hopkins, did an internship in Cusco, Peru and returned to Zambia to direct a primary health care and nutrition project for the next 4 years. Two years in Swaziland working with HIV/AIDS prevention and support and several months of consultancies evaluating projects in completed her work in Africa.
She has studied documentary film-making at M.I.T. with Richard Leacock and got her pilot’s license while in Kenya, at the same airport where Beryl Markham learned to fly.
Fom 1994 to the present she has been building and operating a 300-acre cattle ranch and more recently establishing a grass-fed beef business. Linda also studied art with the late Alberto Mijangos and discovered clay, studying ceramics for the past 6 years at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, with some pieces featured in juried shows and carried in galleries in Austin and Portland.
The best and most exciting adventure of Linda’s life, has been being a mother and now a grandmother. She looks forward to the future.
