How the Walleighs Found Purpose & Adventure

Rick & Wendy overlooking Lewa Downs' savannahBoomers Rick and Wendy Walleighs’ book details their inspiring move to Swaziland and then Nairobi, Kenya for a total of 18 months. These are documented on this website and in their book titled From Silicon Valley to Swaziland: How One Couple Found Purpose & Adventure in an Encore Career. It is available on Amazon, all online book retailers, and some Bay Area bookstores. Go to Media Coverage to see all the media featuring the Walleigh’ adventures.

ALL ROYALTIES ARE DONATED TO TECHNOSERVE, the international development organization for which the Walleighs worked, to continue its “Business Solutions to Poverty” in Africa and Latin America, so please buy this book for friends and family!

Meanwhile, enjoy the photos and descriptions of our many travels to nearly 60 countries on six continents.

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Download our entire book for free! Or click on the image above to sign up here to get a free preview of our book, From Silicon Valley to Swaziland: How One Couple Found Purpose and Adventure in an Encore Career.

Ethiopia: Suspended in Ancient Times

During the 8 days Rick and Wendy spent mid-September 2007 in Ethiopia, their feelings vacillated among guilt, concern, discomfort and fascination.  Ethiopia has the longest, richest, civil and religious history in sub-Saharan Africa yet is one of the poorest countries...

Namibia: Sossusvlei Area of the Red-Duned Namib-Naukluft Desert

The final major stop at the Sossusvlei area of the Namib-Naukluft Desert was as memorable as their time with the Bushmen, but  in a very different way.  The pictures don't do justice to the sand's dramatic colors, changing almost moment to moment from sunrise to...

Uganda: Modern Capital Kampala to Lush, Mountainous Countryside

Uganda is a lush country with amazing rainfall, soil, and crop diversity.  It has deep valleys, is crossed and bordered by stretches of mountains and dotted with a few huge lakes. In fact Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest with 26,000 square miles of surface (Lake...

Namibia: Hunting & Trapping with !San Bushmen

Over the course of their 4 days at Nhoma Camp, Wendy, Rick and Carolyn accompanied the !San hunters as they tracked Steenbok (small antelope), rabbits and African Porcupine.  In a clear division of labor, !San women gathered nuts and berries in parallel with men going...

Kenya Successes: 2007 Believe Begin Become Business Plan Competition

To kick-start youth entrepreneurship in Kenya, TechnoServe partnered with Kenya’s Ministry of Youth Affairs to launch a national business plan competition across Kenya. In March 2007, Kenya’s Vice President and the Minister of Youth Affairs officially launched Believe...

2006 Walleigh Travel Journal: Living, Working in Swaziland + Traveling in Southern Africa

December 21, 2006 - Walleighs Look Back and Forward:  Africa’s Contrasting, Parallel Universes. Rick and I were fortunate to have lived, worked, and traveled in amazing places in Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.  But we didn’t have to go far...

Uganda Successes: Matooke Banana Farm Co-operatives

In August, 2007, Rick and Wendy learned about the then-main TechnoServe Uganda project underway: organizing farmers of Matooke (ma-TOH-kay) bananas, the country's main staple.  These are starch banana which when removed from the still-green skins are cooked, crushed,...

Botswana: Big Five & Other Celebrity Animals

The "Big Five" are the African animals that are reputedly the most dangerously unpredictable: Cape Buffalo, Elephants, Rhinoceros, Lions and Leopards.  However, Hippos--which are grass-eaters--kill more people annually than the Big Five combined.  They are huge, very...

Ethiopia: Lalibela’s Rock-Hewn Churches & Ancient Capital of Axum

The Walleigh tour's third stop was Lalibela, the most visited tourist  site in Ethiopia.  It is named after King Lalibela, the first of the Zagwe Dynasty in the 1600s who began the tradition of building churches hewn literally from huge boulders in the earth or on...

Kenya Successes: Popular Kikoi Cloth Company

Starting in 2008, for its Phase Two program, TechnoServe’s Young Women in Enterprise (YWE) was considering how to identify businesses in which to place the young women in internships so they would learn both the soft and hard skills of employment. Through local...
Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Our four days in Victoria, the capital of Vancouver Island AND British Columbia (BC) gave us a feel for the history—human, geological, and cultural—of the southwestern-most province of Canada. Upon our arrival into Victoria, we checked into the historic Empress Hotel....

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Backpacking in Sierra

Backpacking in Sierra

After a two-night trip in the Santa Cruz Mountains earlier this summer, in August, Rick and two friends went backpacking into the Sierras’ Desolation Wilderness for a few days. The lakes were still partially frozen and the trail was still covered quite a bit in snow....

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“If you are nearing the end of your business career and wondering what’s next, you’ll find Rick and Wendy’s experience both illuminating and inspiring.”

Debra Dunn

Consulting Associate Professor & Former Senior Vice President, Stanford University, Hewlett Packard

 “Rick and Wendy Walleigh are my down-to-earth heroes. At the end of Phase 1 of very successful careers–still healthy enough to spend their retirement days skiing, golfing, lunching, traveling in style–they chose instead to take their energy and considerable skills and apply them in some of the poorest communities in the world.

Bruce McNamer

President & CEO of The Community Foundation for the Nation's Capital Region (Washington DC) & former CEO of TechnoServe

“For those seeking an encore to their professional lives, Rick Walleigh’s account of the adventure he and his wife, Wendy, began is as energizing as it is useful. This remarkable book summarizes the factors they considered before volunteering in Africa to foster economic growth through small business development. More importantly, it records their experience with cultural change, new applications for honed skills, the nature of contemporary economic development work in the face of poverty, and the sights, smells, surprises and encounters found in living and working overseas. This is not a “how-to” book for those of us wanting renewal; it is an “I did this and so can you” story that is unique, thought-provoking and encouraging.”

 

Ron Boring

Former Executive Vice President, Vodafone-Japan