Power cuts are not an unusual thing in Kenya.Sometimes you’ll have weeks when it’s all good, and then a week where it is off and on. The worst we’ve ever had it was 48 hours without power. Just last week the power was off for 24 hours.

The weird thing is that there are two phases on our street and our building is split by this. So, sometimes when the power is off at our apartment, the office has electricity. It’s quite handy because when the power is off for a long time, we can go over there and have a hot shower, use the internet and have dinner there.

We also have some small solar panels to charge up our phones, and of course power banks. A generous donor purchased for us a generator which is really handy when the power goes off for a long time. You can’t run computers off it because they do fluctuate in power, which isn’t good for electronics. But it’s awesome for the internet and if we use a surge protector, then we can do small items.

And of course, we have a gas BBQ and a gas oven, which is very handy in power cuts. The BBQ is on it’s last legs as it’s about 10 years old, but we make the most of it while we can.

So what happens when we go camping? Pete was a smart cookie and got power points plus USB points in the landy when he was getting it done up. We also installed a couple of extra batteries. We have a fridge/freezer in the landy but if you’re totally off grid for a while, you need something to keep it going longer.

This is where the Dune Solar Blanket came into play. We bought it when we were in Australia earlier in the year as it was one quarter of the price we would pay in Kenya. The import duties here are quite ridiculous and make things so expensive. The blanket folds up nicely and we were able to fit it into our suitcase to bring home.

We’re still trying to work out a few things on it, but so far we’ve been able to tell it takes a good 5 hours in the sun to give our batteries a full charge. It’s just a matter of putting it out in the sun, plug in the cord to the panels, the other end into the battery holder and off it goes. Apparently it should be enough to charge the laptop and cameras, which is the main reason for buying it.

Check out the video below of how quick and simple it is to set up.