Rural Uganda is infamous for unreliable power. Through the month of February 2008, power was on for about 40% of the time in Kabale. We would literally run to the power outlets when power came back so that we could charge our phones and laptops. If we really needed to get work done, we were forced to have an extended lunch at the Litte Ritz, the only restaurant in Kabale that had a generator. And there was usually some contention for the available outlets.
I got a little annoyed by this so I had a fellow volunteer bring me an auto adaptor for my laptop from Canada which would allow me to run the laptop from a car battery.
battery, charger and modem
I was able to rent a battery and home-made charger from Osman, one of the local mobile phone techs, for about 30 USD / month. Osman made me a connector for the laptop adaptor and for my fixed wireless terminal so I could use the internet when power was out. I could get full speed, about 16 Kb/s, when power was out because most of the internet cafes didn’t have generators. Once I had this setup, I was kinda happy when power was out – at least during the day 
workspace in Uganda
