Adaptation you mean! Nice, so the earlier they start adapting to the situation, the better... that's just funny.

With the full acknowledgement that the situation in most of Africa is bad, I think here the problem is caused by everything being set up with the expectation of uninterrupted power. I can guarantee you that if power in Spain starts regularrily stopping for hours, people will adapt so that the impact of such events will be minimal. 

BallLightning

security

Lessons learned from a 7+ hours electrical balckout in Spain

This is a lot of vital info you shared here, thanks, and a big kudos for the extra energy you put towards getting a friend to go watch over an old lad who was distressed at that point in time. Don't  be surprised if i tell you that even in some African countries these things happen as well not just in Europe. Power outage last sometimes up to 12 hours in Africa (and they should repent on that though, the power management I mean 😉) 