Comment Re:Cable guy? (Score 1) 63
we went on a bunch of homestays in very remote parts of Fiji earlier this year. These are villages you can only get to by small boat, and then on an island there's only rough walking tracks between them.
The govt had a programme going to install solar in all homes, so most villages we saw had one panel installed per house which just connected directly to one outlet. It was really common to see integrated panel/light setups just where it was needed. More enterprising villagers installed a couple extra panels (and in one case we saw even a battery) and bought a freezer - they used this to buy meat to sell to other villagers. But mainly houses like this were the central point for villagers to charge their phones - there'd often be like 10 or more people hanging out just charging their phones.
What was interesting was visiting ad hoc 'shops' (just peoples houses who bought extra food to sell) - you'd go there to buy 3 potatoes and then do an electronic transfer for payment via cellphone. It worked really well.
Bit of a digression but it was quite eye-opening overall coming from the 'first world' to see them getting on with it - I guess it'd be roughly the same in Africa. I did worry about the electrics in some of these places but they are generally powering 3 or 4 lights max, and maybe a fridge if they're rich. Totally different world.