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.

Stormy Swaziland

Throughout our six months in Swaziland, many storms passed through.  Strong gale force winds hit central Swaziland on the night of August 2, 2006.   The damage was many fallen trees and power and water outages for several days in many places nearby.  A tree fell...

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...

Hiking with Friends to Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp, Yosemite

After many years of attempts by Rick’s backpacking buddy and his wife to persuade her to backpack, Wendy finally agreed to a compromise: hiking to one of Yosemite’s High Sierra camps where breakfast and dinner were included in the price and box lunches were available....

2011 Walleigh Travel Journal Part 2: East & West Coast of U.S.

JUNE 16 – 30, 2011 --  DR. DIANA BECAME A PEDIATRICIAN and MOVED TO PHILADELPHIA. The main reasons for this trip were: 1) to watch our daughter Diana officially become a Pediatrician and 2) to move her from NC to PA.  Rick and I were delighted to find that Bryan, her...

Kenya Successes: Springsand Bakery “Puffs Up” its Market

Starting in 2002, Anderson Muchangi Misoniki opened one retail bread and cake bakery outlet in Embu, in Central Kenya. This growth-oriented business was on a US$57,000 run-rate for annual turnover.  He generally employed 12 people full-time. Anderson has a banking and...

Swazi Culture: Annual Reed Dance–Umhlanga, Real Wedding and Tourist Wedding

Umhlanga – Reed Dance. Once a year, Swazi maidens from across the kingdom come to the Ezulwini Valley to gather reeds that will be used to "repair" the Queen Mother's traditional kraal.  They walk for a day to find the best reeds (younger girls are not required to...

Kenya Successes: TechnoServe’s Young Women in Enterprise Program

Starting May 2006, the Nike Foundation funded TechnoServe Kenya in partnership with Project Baobab based in Nairobi to create Young Women in Enterprise (YWE, which now continues through 2013).  Through 2012, together they implemented a program to raise the level of...

Kenya Successes: Through Young Women in Enterprise Lydia Established Her Own Store

Lydia, 23 years old in 2007, was married to Eric Mauka (33 years old in 2007), a machine operator at a quarry. She had been caring for their 2 children, Elisha and Marion aged nine and five years old, in the Juja area near Thika—a city of approx. 200,000 about 40 km....

Kenya Successes: Hospitality Growth at Mountain Top Institute

Establishing this institute in 2002, Patrick Mwangi’s business had grown to several ventures in Hospitality Services, including a beauty institute, guest hotel, restaurant, college hostels and catering. In 2007 this growth-oriented business was on a US$142,000...

Botswana: About Botswana, Bayiye Culture, Tiny Planes, & Safari Camps

Botswana Has a Unique Combination of Topology: Desert, Salt Pans, Savannah, and Okovango Delta. When most people envision safaris, what they probably are thinking of are animals on broad, open, mostly flat savannahs or grasslands, with the occasional low bushes or...
Western New York in Autumn

Western New York in Autumn

The Walleighs’ 2013 road trip was with good friends with whom they had traveled in New Zealand.  In late September 2013 after traversing Quebec Province (go to Quebec or Montreal, etc.  for details on the Canada portion of this trip), they crossed the border into New...

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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